స్వదేశీ జాగరణ మంచ్

The Indian workers in the Gulf constitute about 5 million of the estimated 25 million Indian Diaspora. According to estimates of the Ministry of external affairs about 48 per cent of the Indian workers in the Gulf are in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. The NRI community in the Gulf countries mainly comprises of people from South Indian states, like Kerala and Andhra Pradesh. Many people from Nizamabad and Karimnagar districts of the state have migrated to Gulf countries and have suffered untold miseries. Hundreds of gulf sufferers who got cheated either in the hands of travel agents or by the employers in Gulf have committed suicides on their return to mother land. There is a need to identify and address the problems of gulf sufferers particularly the sexually abused girls, abandoned children, potential victims of trafficking, destitute women, prisoner's children etc. The SJM has undertaken a study of the problems of Gulf sufferers. For this purpose 15 teams have been constituted and survey was conducted using elaborate questionare. About 450 villages have been covered in the survey and information in structured questionnarie has been obtained from 16000 persons who have returned from Gulf in these districts. Apart from these respondents the SJM also consulted the experts who have been working with great concern in this area for addressing the problems of the Gulf suffderers. The results of survey have been published in the form of a small booklet in Telugu vernacular. Many people particularly belonging to the lower strata of the society belonging to BC SC and ST communnitties in the districts of Nizamabad and Karimnagar have been migrating to Gulf countries in search of better job opportunities as they could not find lively hood of their desire in their mother land. Since most of the potential migrants are from weaker sections who do not have enough financial strength, they are resorting to borrowing money from money lenders at high rates of interests and paying the same to the agents to secure them a job, passport and a visa. The agents are taking undue advantage of the innocence of the gullible people and they are sending people on visit visa or fake visas to Gulf countries where they are condemned to untold miseries. With great difficult when they manage to come back to the home land they are not able to find suitable employment and they do not have enough money to repay the debts which is forcing them to psychological depression and in that state of mind they are committing suicides. After the amnesty scheme was implemented in 2007-08 many people have committed suicides. As per the data collected by this organisation 276 persons deaths occurred between June 2008 to June 2010 and all those deaths were because of inexplicable misery sufferred by the Gulf migrants who are termed as Guld sufferers. Some of the people who could not manage to come back to mother land are comitting suicides in Gulf countries itself and to bring their dead bodies to the home land is becoming a herculian task. The return of migrants was more of a disaster rather than a happy homecoming for them. Back in Andhra Pradesh, they were hounded by people who did not want to know about their problem. Instead they were pressurised by those who had lent money to them to go to the Gulf. They sold their lands, borrowed money and left for the Gulf only to be cheated by their travel agents. In a foreign land, they realise that they did not have jobs and worse, the required documents. Today they are back in AP with no money and worse, no land. Around 70,000 Indian illegal workers had taken advantage of the amnesty scheme to return home, but there were many who did not have the money to pay for their return fare. Besides this many persons from our state are suffering injury, ignominy and aking their lives with only paltry sums which is barely sufficient for their sustinance. As part of our study a team consisting of 5 members have visited Gulf countries to have first hand information about the plight of the migrants from our State in those countries. During the visit of the team they have noticed that still thousands of workers are suffering inexplicable woes. They are managing with a paltry wage of just 600 Dharams out of which 400 dharams is being deducted towards facilities provided to them and they are left with a meagre 200 dharams for sending to their families which is hardly sufficient to pay interest on the debt taken by them for migrating to Gulf countries. Workers have to toil long hours of more than 10 hours at site and in addition they have to spend almost 4 to 5 hours to reach the work site from the quartering area where the workers are accommodated. Every day a worker has to get up as early as at 4.00 am and return to bed only after 9.00 or 10.00 pm with hardly any time for other things. Despite so much of toil they do not have sufficient incomes to pay off their debts. The sharp decline in wages was mostly because of stiff competion of Bangladesh immigrants who are prepared to work for even lesser wages as their currency is relatively weaker when compared to Indian currency and they are not incurring any debt for migrating to Gulf countries. If the competition from Bangladesh intensifies the conditions would still become worse for migrants from our State which have wider ramification not only on the employment situation in our country but also on the over all remittances from abroad and growth of our economy. Therefore there is an urgent need to address the problems of the migrants from our State and atleast relieve them of the Debt burden. There is also an urgent need for the Government to take a pro-active role in encouraging migration to Gulf countries at the same time protecting the interests of our citizens. In this back drop during our study certain suggestions for the problem were solicited. The major suggestions that emerged from the survey for addressing the problems of the Gulf sufferers are mentioned hereunder. • A special fund with a corpus of about Rs.2000 crores has to be established to address the problems of Gulf sufferers. • There should be an information centre located either in the Collectorates of the District or some other convenient place to provide comprehensive and authentic information about procedures and other details of Gulf countries. • The Gulf sufferers should be provided loans at concession rates of interest under ‘paavala vaddi’ scheme of the Government of Andhra Pradesh to help them rehabilitated. • All the Gulf sufferers should be issued voter ids and ration cards which were cancelled on the pretext that they have left the country. The cards were not re-issued after their return to their native place. • A task force should be established in each district of the state to curb the malpractices of agents and sub-agents. • Since most of the gulf returnees are unskilled persons, finding employment for them has become difficult. Therefore training should be imparted free of cost to those persons for acquiring skill in some vocation so that they can get gainful employment • There should be an employment assistance centre headed by a senior IAS officer to screen the applications of job seekers and forward them to the potential employers abroad and facilitate genuine employment. • The families of the persons who have committed suicides should be provided with some financial assistance in the form of ex-gratia and also gain ful employment should be provided to atleast one person of the bereaved family members. • The morotorium announced by the Govt. of AP on forceful collection of private debts should be extended for two more years and this morotorium should be implemented effectively. For the purpose of effective implementation of this morotorium a review committee has to be constituted in each mandal which should have clear cut delegation of powers. • Efforts should be made by the External affairs Ministry to get our citizens released from the prisons of the Gulf countries, who have been imprisoned for various reasons. Arrangements should be made to get authentic information of all the Indians arrested abroad as soon as they are arrested and that data should be updated constantly. • Since most of the people from the two districts surveyed which has more number of Gulf sufferers, had gone to Dubai, atleast two or three Telugu knowing persons should be posted in Indian Embassy in that country. • A special employment programme should be announced for providing employment to Gulf returnees. • All the Gulf returnees should be covered under the Arogyasree- Health Insurance Scheme of Government of Andhra Pradesh • To prevent illegal trafficing of women /children and their exploitation abroad special committees have to be constituted • The data base of Gulf immigrants should be maintained transparently • The data base of Gulf immigrants should contain the details of their residential address abroad, the employment status, visa status etc which should be accessable to their relatives back home in their home land. • To prevent suicides among the Gulf sufferers helplines and Councelling centres have to be established in each mandal in these two districts. • Arrangements should be made to identify and send expeditiuously the dead bodies of the Citizens of this country who die abroad. In this connection the assurances given by both State and Union Governments should be implemented on priority basis. • To facilitate obtaining legal visas to the potential immigrants information centres should be operated by the Government in each district headquarters • Diplomatic arrangements should be made by the Ministry of External affairs to ensure that all the labour laws of respective countries are made applicable to all those particularly women and children who migrate as domestic help in Gulf countries. Arrangements should be made to prevent abuse of Indian women in Gulf countries. • The activities of Protector of Immigrants should be carried out in a transparent manner. Enquiry has to be conducted on the allegations made on the Officers and staff of POI Office located at Hyderabad. To have a fair inquiry all the persons who are facing allegations should be transferred to different places. • The terms of Pravasi Bharatiya Bhima Yojana should be suitably modified to enable all the policy holders who have paid premium to get the benefits under the policy irrespective of their visa status. • Arrangements should be made to ensure payment of agreed wages to all the immigrants by the foreign employers compliance to their labour laws irrespective of their visa status. Once a person is employed by any body he should be paid fair wages as per their law irrespective of the visa status. For this purpose diplomatic agreements should be entered if necessary. • To ensure payment of agreed wages to Indian immigrants by foreign employers, payments should be arranged only through bank accounts. • Arrangements should be made to interpret the contracts of employment for the benefit of Indian immigrants as most of the contracts are not in English but local language. • Arrangements to claim unpaid wages from the foreign employers as per contract of employment. The legal fee payable shall not exceed 10 per cent of the amount received. • Restrictions on migration to Iraq should be phased out within a stipulated time frame. • A team for review of all employment advertisements of Gulf should be established to identify illegal advertisements and also dubious advertisements so as to prevent gullible job seekers falling prey to those advertisements. Action should be initiated against the media which carried that illegal dubious advertisements. • Stern action should be taken against the advertisers of Azad visas. • Online facility should be provided to check the correctness of visa details and employment offers made by the foreign employer. The above list is only illustrative but not exhaustive. I am sure there would be many more suggestions on this issue. We also take this opportunity to thank you for taking proactive initiatives in addressing the problems of Gulf sufferers when we submitted our representations to the leadership of the party at Delhi. Some of the issues pertain to the jurisdiction of the Government of India, but they can be addressed only when the Government of Andhra Pradesh intervenes.