by Moiz mannan
The Ministry of Overseas Indians Affairs (MOIA) has finally provided a much needed relief for overseas migrants from the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh by following up on its promise to set up an independent office of Protector of Emigrants.
The office has been started in the city of Rae Bareli, some 80km from Lucknow. This is the 10th office of the Protector of Emigrants in India. The existing nine are in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Chandigarh, Thiruvananthapuram, Cochin and Jaipur.
The one in Delhi currently looks after the needs of migrants from Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh. One can imagine the workload on this office as migrants from four states, including the relatively far off Chhattisgarh, have to come here to deal with their emigration matters.
The office in Mumbai caters to the entire state of Maharashtra in addition to Gujarat. The office in Kolkata offers services to migrants from the north-eastern states, Orissa, Bihar and West Bengal. The Chennai office deals with Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.
The Chandigarh POE office caters to people from Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir. The only two state-specific offices are the one at Hyderabad for Andhra Pradesh and that in Jaipur for the people of Rajasthan. Only Kerala, which is India’s leading manpower exporting state has two POE offices at Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi respectively. There are proposals to set up POE offices also in Bengaluru and Guwahati.
According to official statistics, the number of workers given emigration clearance from Uttar Pradesh has gone up from just over 66,000 in 2006 to more than 200,000 now. For the same period, the numbers for Kerala have climbed down from over 1,20,000 to around 85,000 and those for Tamil Nadu from a little over 155,000 to just about 65,000.
The statistics help us put in perspective not just the current pattern of outbound emigration but also the need for a geographic shift in government focus. The categories of migrants have also to be given a thought. While most of those from states like Punjab and Gujarat are businessmen or white-collar workers, most of those from other north Indian states such as UP and Bihar are blue collar labourers. This is the category that needs the POE services the most.
From the political point of view, Uttar Pradesh has remained the most significant state ever since Independence. It has been the traditional stronghold of the Nehru-Gandhi clan and Rae Bareli is the constituency that elected Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi to the Indian parliament. In fact, questions have been raised over locating the new POE office at Rae Bareli instead of Lucknow.
Workers are required to take final clearance from the office of Protector of Emigrants a few days before they are supposed to fly abroad. Since Rae Bareli does not have any international airport, workers will have to come to Lucknow to take their flights abroad. While senior officials of the ministry say that increasing population from UP going abroad is the main reason for opening the office, they failed to justify choosing Rae Bareli for the purpose and not a centrally located place like the state capital.
The Indian Express recently quoted a senior ministry official as saying that “UP has become significant in past three years in emigration, overtaking even Kerala. However, specific reasons for selecting Rae Bareli are best known to the higher-ups”
The ministry issues regular advisories on details of countries/recruiting services abroad, which have not delivered the promises that the employee was assured at the time of recruitment. Lists of illegal recruitment agencies are also available with these offices. With the setting up of the POE office, outbound migrants from Uttar Pradesh will be able to confirm if the recruiting company hiring is dependable or not.
Also there are times when an Indian dies in a foreign land and their family in a remote village is neither aware, nor literate or financially strong to go to Delhi and pursue their case with the ministry.
There have been instances in the past, where it took foreign authorities months to despatch the bodies in such cases in the absence of any response from the Indian authorities at the government level.
The office will give “emigration clearance” to workers going abroad, issue registration certificates to recruiting agents, act as a link between recruiting agents and workforce and also safeguard the interests of the workforce by providing assistance and monitoring recruiting agents.
It may be mentioned here that the Ministry of Overseas Indians Affairs has already come out with a Bill to amend the emigration laws. Among other things, the Bill proposes the replacement of the institution of Protector General of Emigrants with an all-powerful umbrella body called the Emigration Authority of India. The move was a result of an ever-rising number of cases of emigration-related frauds and wrong-doings and complaints of corruption and lethargy against the Protectors of Emigrants.
On the other hand, there are also examples when innovative practices have earned the office credibility. The POE office at Chennai, for example, launched an online portal.
The e-platform has enabled the Chennai PoE, the only one with ISO 2000 quality certification among the nine, to detect several emigration-related frauds. The interactive portal offers overseas job-seekers the facility of lodging complaints online and also tracking the follow-up on their grievances.
To that extent, the new mechanism would also make employees at the PoE offices that much more alert and accountable. Similar initiatives by other PoE offices would surely help the blue collar migrants, until the time a new mechanism comes into place.
