Govt to set up advisory council of PIO

With an eye to leveraging India's soft power in the world, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today announced the setting up of a Global Advisory Council of People of Indian Origin (PIO) that he will head.

The Council will comprise of PIO from various fields and will serve as a high-level platform for the PM to draw upon the experience and knowledge of Indians all over the world in various developmental efforts.

Surprisingly, the PM, rather than announcing an India Development Foundation, said the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs (MOIA) was "examining a proposal to establish such a body which would be an autonomous not-for-profit trust and serve as a credible institutional mechanism to direct overseas Indian philanthropic propensities into human development efforts in India".

The foundation would be set up in association with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). Although there was no word about why the institutional set-up was not announced, sources said the delay was on account of the need for a system for tax treatment and scrutiny of source of funds.

"Apart from making contributions at times of national calamity, like earthquakes and tsunami, many PIOs/NRIs are already engaged in various development initiatives in India. Philanthropy is an area where a number of new partnerships can be built and the foundation would give impetus to these efforts," Singh said.

Mentioning that India is the largest recipient of remittances from its overseas community "" estimated at about $26 billion in 2006, the PM said the less known fact was that close to 50 per cent of this money came from the Indian workers in the Gulf.

Singh also announced the launch of an Overseas Workers' Resource Centre (OWRC) to provide all relevant information and assistance to potential migrant workers and also operate a multi-lingual helpline for grievance redressal and interventions for overseas workers in distress. The PM said he hoped the trust would expand the scope of services to promote legal migration.

Singh also said the MOIA had started a nation-wide skill upgrade training programme for potential migrant workers. The scheme has a target of training nearly two lakh emigrant workers over the Eleventh Five-Year Plan.

"This will help create a strong cadre of highly skilled workers who will then be best placed to fill the large labour supply gaps emerging in the western world," Singh said. The government has approved setting up of a Council for the Promotion of Overseas Employment to serve as a strategic think-thank.

On the higher education front, the PM announced that the government had approved the basic policy framework for a PIO university, proposed by him last year to address the educational needs of children of overseas Indians across the world.

This university will be established in a public-private partnership with active participation of overseas Indian trusts or societies. The university will have the autonomy and flexibility in the disciplines that it offers and in its academic governance.

"MOIA has shortlisted few of the proposals and a final decision is expected to be taken soon. I am confident the work on the university will commence this year," the PM said.