Thousands of workers return home, but new opportunities beckon some.
By Rajiv Theodore
NEW DELHI: For decades, Indian workers, many of them from Kerala, braved punishing heat and rigid labor laws to create spectacular cities in the deserts of the Gulf and Saudi Arabian peninsula. These tough and sometimes inhospitable tracts of land had always been a second home to the peripatetic Malayalees, with scores of them working there for decades to earn money, and remit it back home.
Now the time of reckoning has come.
These countries are today building immigration laws to protect their own citizens from rising unemployment at home and against an ever increasing influx of immigrants. This has resulted in scores of workers coming back to Kerala, and face an uncertain future. The scenes at many Kerala airports are witness to tearful welcomes as opposed to boisterous home-comings earlier.
The fluctuating fortunes has been by no means sudden as Saudi Arabia had actually announced its new labor laws called ‘Nitaqat’, or categories, nearly two years ago. But its enforcement now finally means at least a tenth of the workers in private and public companies and businesses will be Saudis. The Saudi government has also cracked down on illegal workers in the country. Like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait too is turning unattractive for Indian workers. The government recently announced plans to send back 100,000 illegal workers annually.
While professionals and skilled workers employed in different sectors could either regularize their work permit papers or transfer their services to new employers, by changing job titles, unskilled immigrants who thrive on various kinds of visas, including that of servant, driver, and housemaid, are the ones suffering the most.
By the end of October, nearly 90,000 Indians came back from Saudi Arabia. About 4, 66,689 Indian workers have renewed their Iqamas (resident permit) over the last five months of the grace period, 359,997 workers have transferred their sponsorships and 355,035 workers changed their job titles to legalize their status, reports Financial Express.
Though Malayalees form the majority of nearly 1.78 million Indians working in Saudi Arabia, swathes of people from other states such as Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan and Punjab have also flocked to that country in recent times.
Those who have returned are looking at an uncertain future.
Mohammed Anwar from Calicut, who worked for almost 20 years in Saudi Arabia has returned home empty handed. He now looks forward to a government rehabilitation package.
Manoj Gopinath now works in a stationery store near Calicut International airport in Malappuram district. He faces the painful truth of not being able to buy any school supplies for his kindergarden attending daughter. Gopinath had to quit his supermarket job in Oman last month to return to India. “I earned Rs. 20,000 a month there and here I make only Rs. 7,000,’’ he said.
Anwar and Gopinath are amongst the thousands of Indians who were forced to leave Saudi Arabia permanently, according to immigration experts. But the big question that looms in front of these workers is: is the Gulf dream over?
According to immigration experts a good number of the returning migrants would switch to another Gulf country. Dubai is gradually returning to its former glory in growth. Qatar will need workers to build infrastructure at a large scale as it hosts the 2022 football World Cup. Also, the Arab Spring countries of Libya and even Egypt are limping back to emerge as attractive markets for the Indian workforce thanks to the massive reconstruction work under way.
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