Kuwait rule that eight lakh Indians will have to come back

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The law being made in Kuwait about migrants has resurfaced those ‘concerns’ in the minds of Indians living in the Gulf when two years ago, hundreds of Indian engineers had to lose their jobs due to a change in rules.

The legal review of the National Assembly of Kuwait has considered the provision of a bill being prepared on migrants as legitimate.

For approval, this proposal is going to be sent to other committees. The draft of this law says that the number of Indians living in Kuwait should be limited to 15 percent of the country’s total population.

It is believed that out of the nearly 10 lakh overseas Indians living there, eight or eight and a half lakh people may have to return in case the bill passes.

Most Diaspora Indians in Kuwait

The native Kuwaitis have a population of only thirteen-and-a-half million, out of a total population of about 4.5 million of this small country in the north of Saudi Arabia and south of Iraq.

Indians living in Egypt, Philippines, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and other countries are the largest Indians.

The proposed law says that the number of people living in Kuwait from other countries has also been reduced. It has been said that the number of migrants will be reduced from the present level to 30 percent of the total population.

Nasir Mohammed (name changed), who works in a Kuwait national company, has to “work as a supervisor under compulsion” despite having an engineering degree.

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He says, “Indians living here are wondering what will happen if the bill becomes law?”

Nasir Mohammed still considers himself lucky that he got a job in the new company instead of the old company, or because of being out of the scope of the new Kuwaiti rules that came in 2018; IIT and BITS Pilani have seen jobs from engineers to the passed. – She had gone to see.

Former External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj had also raised the matter of engineers with the government of Kuwait but no solution could be found.

Says Nasir Mohammed, “The situation is that a lot of Indians who have obtained engineering degrees are working on the salaries and ranks of supervisors, foremen, etc. in Kuwait while on duty they have to play an engineer.”

Mohammad Ilyas, a resident of Hyderabad living in Kuwait, says that the new expatriate law-like rule has been a frequent occurrence since the 2008 economic downturn. This was further accelerated in 2016 when Saudi Arabia implemented the Nitaqat law.

According to Nitaqat law, the job rate of local people in Saudi Arabia’s government departments and companies has to be raised.

Last year, a Kuwaiti MP, Khalid al-Saleh, issued a statement demanding the government to “stop the storm of migrants who have seized jobs and services provided by government.”

A second MP, Safa al-Hashem, said a few years ago that “the law should be brought to allow migrants not to have a driving license for a year and to keep a car.”

This statement of Safa al-Hashem was also condemned in some circles.

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In Kuwait’s National Assembly, 50 MPs are elected. However, it is believed that the rich are in a decision-making role there.

Recently, when there is talk of new law, some local people have also been seen making statements against it.

From the end of the 19th century to 1961, Indians had started going to Kuwait, which was under Britain’s ‘protection’ for a long time.

At this time Indians are present there in almost all areas from business to business, the number of people working in Kuwaiti homes from drivers to cooks to Aya is said to be three and a half lakh. People believe that it will not be easy to fill their space with other people in a hurry.

Revan D’Souza’s family migrated to Kuwait from India in the 1950s and his birth is also there.

Revan D’Souza is the editor of the local English newspaper Times Kuwait.

He says, “The bill on migrants has just been accepted by the legal committee as being compatible with the constitution. It is yet to go through many more committees like the Human Resources Committee and other phases. Only then will it be introduced as a bill. It is only possible after the law is made. “

Revan D’Souza sees this from another perspective as well.

He says that in the midst of the crisis arising out of the Kovid-19 and the government of India ignoring the demand of the local government to take back the illegal people living there, there is resentment in some circles of Kuwaiti government and now that someone Do not want to depend on those who work in a country.

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