New hope for Indian expat workers
abu dhabi — Brijesh Tiwary and his friends at a Mussafah labour accommodation are happy and relieved after the Indian missions in the UAE announced revised guidelines of Indian Community Welfare Fund (ICWF) on Thursday, whereby those in distress will receive more financial and legal assistance.
“If this revision was enforced last year, we wouldn’t have had to run from pillar to post for our case,” Tiwary said on Friday.
Tiwary and his colleagues hadn’t been paid for months and fought a case over the non-payment in the labour court. However, they didn’t receive any salaries and had to pay fine for non-renewal of their job visas. Despite all these, all of them but Tiwary exited the country on an outpass.
“I managed to pay my visa penalty. I never got a dirham more as salary. If we had a good lawyer representing us, we wouldn’t have lost our hard-earned salaries,” Tiwary noted.
It is people like Tiwary who stand to benefit from the revised guidelines, which give more teeth to the Indian missions. Now as the missions can offer services of law firms to the needy and with better representation and voice in court, there is renewed hope for poor workers.
New hope
We, as an embassy, must be responsive to the concerns of those who need us most, the workers.”
Navdeep Singh Suri, Indian Ambassador to the UAE
It is glad to see Indian government and missions come up with steps to look after poor people like me.” Mohammed Salim, Indian worker
There are those like Mohammed Salim, who has got a new lease of life following the latest announcement. Both his kidneys have failed and he undergoes hemodialysis thrice a week to live. Worse, Salim is jobless for last three years as he couldn’t continue to work. Doctors have now advised him to do transplant.
“I am dying and this move by the Indian government has given me hope. I have read in your newspaper that the upper limit for medical assistance has been fixed at Dh18,360. I am awaiting these guidelines to be effective from September 1 and then I can avail them. It’s glad to see Indian government and missions come up with such steps to look after poor people like me,” said Salim, who hasn’t seen his wife and daughter, who are back in India, for more than three years. “I may be able to get assistance for transplant and return to India soon.”
As per new guidelines, the fund has provision for providing emergency medical care to the needy, who are involved in an accident with serious life-threatening injuries, have life-threatening medical conditions or suffer a serious disability, if the employer/sponsor in unwilling to meet the expenses and the family is unable to meet the cost.
A step forward
Meanwhile, Indian officials noted the highlight of the revised guidelines were the ability of both the embassy and the consulate to provide legal assistance to those who have to take up matter in court.
“We now have additional resources and latitude to help Indians,” Ambassador of India to the UAE Navdeep Singh Suri said.
The additional resources now at the disposal of the missions will also help to empower financially those Indians who may have lost their jobs, are unpaid, don’t have ticket to return home, are in a medical emergency situation or need help with repatriation of dead body, he added.
“We, as an embassy, must be responsive to the concerns of those who need us most, which are the workers and blue-collar category,” Suri said.
The events held in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, the ambassador said, were a start to the “process of outreach to get the message about the Indian Community Welfare Fund out as broadly as possible. Over the next few weeks, through Indian Workers Resources Centre, through our outreach into labour accommodations and by working with Indian community associations, we do hope that we will be able to get the word out that this embassy is there to serve the needs of the Indian community.”
The guidelines, Suri said, are an important step forward to discharge the Indian government’s commitment which comes from Prime Minister Narendra Modi and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj.
Awareness required
However, social activists say a lot will depend on how all these measures get implemented and the utilisation of fund.
Dubai-based Girish Pant said the success of legal assistance will heavily depend on the experience and nature of lawyer.
Drawing a comparison with doctors, he said, a worker in need will have half of his problems solved if the officials at the missions are caring and welcoming.
“Similarly the lawyers too need to be understanding. A worker in distress should be given a humane treatment.” He welcomed the new guidelines. “There are so many pointers. This will greatly help the low-paid workers.”
Pant, however, stressed on creating awareness. “This message needs to go out through all social welfare associations and notice boards of all labour accommodations. Next six months should be dedicated to spreading the word. Even the HR department of each company should inform their Indian staff about this. Providing legal assistance in minor crimes and payment of penalties for those in jails for minor offences is a great move that will benefit many poor people,” Pant added.
ashwani@khaleejtimes.com