Vikas Swarup said India appreciates the "magnanimous view" taken by the Saudi Arabian Government of granting exit visas expeditiously and agreeing to bear the expenses for the travel of the workers.
The first batch of 26 Indian workers, who had lost their jobs in Saudi Arabia, arrived in Delhi on Thursday after the country issued them exit visas. Saudi Arabia had agreed to swiftly resolve plight of thousands of laid-off Indian workers including providing them free passage to return to India during visit of Minister of State for External Affairs VK Singh to the Gulf nation last week. "Minister of State, VK Singh has had very productive meetings with the Labour minister and other senior ministers during his visit to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. As a result of these meetings, the process of lodging claims and for those wishing to come back to India has already started," External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Vikas Swarup said.
He said India appreciated the "magnanimous view" taken by the Saudi Arabian Government of granting exit visas expeditiously and agreeing to bear the expenses for the travel of the workers. Saudi Arabia has also set up a crisis management group to address difficulties being faced by the jobless Indian workers while a separate panel has been appointed to look into their claims relating to unpaid wages. Saudi rules restricts foreign workers to leave the country without NoC by the employers.
"The swift action to tackle a localised problem specific only to some companies of Saudi Arabia signifies the deep and abiding relationship that our two countries share. We are confident that this will alleviate the problems faced by workers of all nationalities," said the MEA Spokesperson. The Spokesperson referred to the difficulties of retrenched workers of Saudi Oger limited and said the first batch of 26 Indian workers were issued exit visas. The workers came by a flight from Jeddah. "From here, respective state governments will be making arrangements for their travel to their home towns," Swarup said.
Meanwhile, as per figures presented to the Lok Sabha by Minister of State for External Affairs MJ Akbar while replying to a question, a total of 55,730 Indians have returned from Saudi Arabia between August 2015 and July 2016. The number of people returned from the country included those on home visits and coming to India on other purposes. As per the figures, the number of returnees in May this year was 7,752 while it was over 8,000 in June and 6,437 in July. Replying to a separate question, Akbar said negotiations for an extradition treaty between India and Afghanistan was in the final stage.
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