The widening gulf

Saudi Arabia has declared July 4 as the cut-off date for overstayers and other illegal expatriates to leave or face punishment. Sources say a good number of Indians flocking to the Indian Embassy in Riyadh for a passage home are Keralites.

It8217;s not yet clear how far the Saudis will go beyond their usual annual exercise this time. Each year, hundreds of young men from Kerala villages use the relatively lax regulations for a 35-day Saudi visa meant to perform the Muslim rite of Umrah to reach there, only to vanish underground for a few quick years of making money before getting deported.

And each year this season, the Saudis invariably mop up a few hundred and boot them back to their countries after a stint in local jails. This time however, the kingdom is going about it much more seriously, almost with a sense of determined finality.

Besides the usual bunch of Umrah dodgers, several more Keralites may risk deportation thanks to the steady tightening of Saudi emigration laws in recent years, which have made staying on the right side of regulations difficult.

8220;We still have no clear idea about the actual shape of things out there. We are waiting for an assessment from the Indian Embassy before getting down to specifics,8221; says C Ramachandran, Principal Secretary of the Kerala Government8217;s department for Non-resident Keralites Affairs NORKA.

The largest migrant Indian population in the Gulf, numbering over 1.2 million, is in Saudi Arabia. The bulk of the nearly 3.3 million Indian workers in the Gulf repatriated around five billion dollars worth of oil currency last year. And about 2.5 million of these fortune seekers are Keralites.

While Kerala has been keeping its fingers crossed, the Gulf states8217; once-stable employment base is suffering seismic shudders and cracks. Wages are no longer what they used to be, and the local Arab workforce is increasing. The combined effects of last year8217;s plummetting oil revenues and the increasing pegging of pay and perks to other parts of the world haven8217;t helped things even for the creamy professional layer among Gulf-bound Keralites.

As for the bulk comprising unskilled and semi-skilled workers emplaning with little more than their willing sinews and hardy optimism, it has been bad enough since the UAE the second most favoured Gulf destination all but closed its doors on them three years ago. It looks as though the Saudis intend to go further with their declared Arabisation, and the other Gulf states would not lag behind.

Not without reason. The Gulf Cooperation Council GCC had estimated last year that the unemployment rate of its own Gulf citizens will be 9.5 per cent by 2005. The Kuwaiti government has been linking expatriate labour to social unrest 49 percent of expatriates in Kuwait are single males and tightening controls. Qatar, reeling under the 1999 oil and Asian crises, has been seeing largescale retrenchmnents and recruitment freezes.

The UAE has started implementing Emiratisation of its labour force in earnest Over a thousand young local Arab graduates join its workforce a year, and the backlog is growing. It aims to have 80 per cent local workforce in crucial sectors by 2010.

This spells doom for Kerela, where the industrial scene is nothing to write home about, the agriculture is in tatters and there8217;s no core sector activity to lean on.

The country8217;s largest money order-economy state which prides itself on importing even its daily vegetables is witnessing ominous signs. The rapid spurt in the closed facades of travel and recruting agencies will be the most obvious indicator. But Keralites will still queue up with their passports, nursing hope and despair, as always.

Because there isn8217;t much else in God8217;s Own Country anyway.

India is smoothening the passage home, says MEA
New Delhi: In 1997, Indians staying illegally in Saudi Arabia had made a mad rush to secure emergency permits8217;. This time, the government South Block is pulling out all stops to meet the July 4 deadline set by the Saudi Arabian authorities for Indians staying there illegally.

According to government sources, senior officials of the Ministry of External Affairs MEA are in touch with the Indian ambassador there, Talmiz Ahmed. The mission has reportedly made adequate arrangements to meet the rush and prepare emergency permits, the documents that enable these people to return to India.

The Saudi Arabian government has recently announced the amnesty scheme for foreigners who were staying without proper documents in Saudi Arabia. Diplomatic sources say that the last time such an amnesty scheme was announced in 1997, as many as 40,000 Indians had taken emergency permits8217; from the Indian mission to leave the country.

The Indians who could be affected by the amnesty scheme include those who either had valid work visas but changed their employers later, rendering these visas invalid, or those who are yet to get fresh visas.

Under Saudi Arabian laws, anyone seeking employment in Saudi Arabia has to get a Saudi national to sponsor him. If an employee is sacked from the job for which he came to Saudi Arabia, he has to leave the country. But often, these employees, from states such as Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala, stay on illegally.

8212; SAURABH SHUKLA