New Immigration laws says Minister of Overseas Affairs

The existing immigration laws would be replaced by a totally new set of laws, Minister of Overseas Indian Affairs Vayalar Ravi announced. 



‘The Emigration Management Bill, 2009, will shortly be placed before the Cabinet, seeking approval for introducing the Bill in Parliament,’ he said inaugurating the fourth annual conference of Head of Missions of GCC Countries, Libya, Malaysia, Yemen and the Maldives here. 



Mr Ravi said the Overseas Indian Affairs Ministry was committed to transforming emigration into a simple, efficient, transparent, orderly and humane process, and it was taking legislative and administrative measures to deal firmly with irregular migration. 



‘One of the reasons for irregular migration is the nefarious activities of Indian intermediaries operating from the host countries. Our Missions should get after such unscrupulous elements, collect intelligence and share information with the Indian enforcement agencies so that they could be prosecuted under Indian Law,’ he said. 



The Minister said the annual conference had emerged as an important platform to understand and find solutions to the problems faced by overseas Indian workers. 



Pointing out that Indian workers in the Gulf countries were temporary, contractual workers, who spend several years in harsh living and working conditions, remitting most of their savings back home and often returning in poor health with no savings, he said the Ministry was working towards establishing a Return and Resettlement Fund that would provide for a contribution-based scheme to incentivise the return and resettlement of the overseas workers. 



The Minister also said the Indian Community Welfare Funds (ICWF) in the 17 ECR countries and Maldives had been established. 



The ICWF is a self-financing mechanism for providing need based and means tested support services to emigrants in distress. 



Mr Ravi said the Ministry had signed MoUs for bilateral cooperation for protection and welfare of overseas Indian workers with Malaysia, Jordan and all the GCC countries except Saudi Arabia, and these MOUs would have optimal impact on the conditions of their workers only if the Joint Working Group meetings were held regularly. He said India Mission in Saudi Arabia and the External Affairs Ministry would continue to make efforts to facilitate early negotiations for an MoU with Saudi Arabia. ‘There is a proposal for similar MOUs with Yemen, Libya and the Maldives,’ he added.