'Kuwait's policy is not to target Indians per se'

Question: There were reports of some Indians being detained in Kuwait. Can we have the status on it? Have they been released?

External Affairs Minister Official Spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin: We currently have 700,000 Indian nationals who are Kuwait residents. They fall under various categories. Since the beginning of this year, the Kuwait government has announced a policy whereby it would reduce the number of expatriates in general over a 10-year period. As part of the approach, it is initially focussing on those who do not have valid visas, and those who have come on a certain type of visa - a domestic worker's visa - and are working in other areas. In Kuwait, there are broadly two types of visas - one for working as a domestic help and the other for working in other organisations. Now, there may be a large number of expatriates, Indians included, who may be coming to Kuwait in one category and, perhaps, working in another category. And those are the ones who have been targeted.
 

My understanding is that we have taken it up with Kuwait, both in New Delhi and in Kuwait, that if this is its policy, it is best to communicate this and provide a time frame for everybody who is not in compliance with this to either sort their status out or to return to their home countries. This is for all expatriates; it is not targeted towards Indians alone. Of course, Indians are among the largest number of expatriates in Kuwait... At this stage, the number is fairly small.

My understanding is that from the beginning of the year till now, we have issued less than 1,000 emergency certificates for Indians wanting to return to India. Of these, not all have returned because, by the time some of them desired to return, they were able to regularise their status. That is where we are. The numbers are small, but this is an issue. Our Embassy has been proactively following this up.

Now the Kuwaiti government has decided that it would pay for the air ticket for those who are to return. But they are being only paid for the air ticket up to the nearest destination, which is Mumbai. So, as part of a welfare measure, the Embassy is working with the local authorities and the excess amount - if somebody would travel from, say, Mumbai to Delhi, or to Rajasthan - of air fare is being paid through the Embassy via the Indian Workers Welfare Fund. In addition, our labour officials are regularly going to the deportation centres to assist any Indian nationals who may have a willingness to change over their papers rather than go back. That is where we are.

Q: On July 3, the three-month grace period is expiring in Saudi Arabia for those affected by Nitaqat. Where do the Indians expatriate stand, how many are affected, how many would be coming back, and what were the talks? Our ministry went there and other ministers also went there. Where do we stand?

Akbaruddin: As you perhaps are aware, there are a total of 2.8 million Indians in Saudi Arabia. Since this issue of the possibility of expatriates who are not in compliance with their visa status being returned to India arose earlier this year, we have tried to tackle it at various levels. One is at the political level, where we had our Overseas Indian Affairs Minister Vayalar Ravi visit along with a delegation of the Minister of State for External Affairs E Ahamed, and Advisor to the Prime Minister T K A Nair.

The idea was that we acknowledge that it is the sovereign right of a country to have a policy that it determines appropriate for residency in its country. However, what we felt was that since there was a change from the policy that existed so far, the idea was to provide time and to treat those who are adversely impacted by that policy, with a degree of humaneness and dignity. That was the focus of our political contacts.

This was reinforced when the external affairs minister went to Saudi Arabia. He did meet his counterpart, Prince Saud al-Faisal. He also met the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia as well as several senior Saudi officials. In each of those engagements, it was emphasised that this was not something that was targeted towards Indians; but to follow a policy that would ensure that those who were irregularly there, would have to leave the country.

While we have only an Embassy in Riyadh and a Consulate in Jeddah, the Ambassador did open up a special office of a temporary nature in Dammam, which is in the Eastern Province, 400 km away from Riyadh. We have a regular officer stationed there to assist all Indian nationals.

In addition, there are several Indian community schools spread out all over Saudi Arabia. Each of these schools have their non-teaching staff assisting Indian nationals by collecting their applications for either change of their status or for emergency certificates. In this process, over the last few months I understand approximately 72,000 applications have been received...

The Embassy has been able to identify 150 Saudi employers who are willing to take Indian employees. These are in various categories. So, these 70,000 people who applied to either change their status or to return to India have been informed of what opportunities are available for them to find alternative employment. We have also set up a 24x7 help desk where anytime, anybody can phone and seek information not only in English and Hindi, but in several Indian languages. Approximately 600 volunteers have volunteered to provide assistance to the Indian community.

At this stage, we do not know the total number of people who may return. The last time when we had this sort of a situation of an amnesty where people were asked to return, we had provided about 30,000 emergency certificates. However, it is estimated that only about 3,000 people came back...

We have worked proactively, and we hope that you have not seen this crisis burgeon into a major issue simply because the Embassy and the ministry of external affairs along with other ministries is trying to do our best to ameliorate what is a difficult situation that has arisen there.

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Edited excerpts from the official briefing by External Affairs Minister Spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin in New Delhi on June 11