The Odisha Government is mulling to set up an institutional mechanism to handle the problems of emigrants moving to foreign countries and facing harassment.
While several State Governments have set up Non Resident Affairs Department to manage the problems of these workers, similar requirement is felt here in the State, said a senior officer in the Department of labour and ESI.
ACS Home, Asit Tripathy recently held a review meeting as Odisha is in the list of top ten labourer sending States in the country from where large numbers of highly skilled, semi skilled and skilled manpower are moving to the Gulf and foreign countries.
Principal Secretary labour and ESI, Gudey Srininvas, Special DGP Crime Bijaya Kumar Sharma, Special Secretary Home lalit Das, Additional Resident Commissioner Tribikaram Pradhan and several senior officials attended the meeting.
Kerala, Punjab and several other States to handle the issues of non residents have already set up Non Resident Affairs Department.
And, the Department of Non Residents Keralite Affairs (NORKA) is operating successfully. So, it has been suggested by the experts and officials to set up a new department on the lines of NORKA in Odisha.
Recently, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) had advised the State Government to set up a nodal agency to deal with growing problems of the workers moving to foreign countries for job and facing tough time in work place.
MEA had advised the State Government to take several measures, including setting up Government recruitment agents so that illegal agents will not be able to take advantage.
After the MEA’s Overseas Employment Mission, headed by External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, decided taking action against the illegal agents, the State Governments were asked to take immediate action against the illegal agents.
The MEA has also advised the State administration to launch a web-portal with complete online information on safe emigration through Registered Recruitment Agents (RRA) in the State.
This will help both the State and Union Government to rescue the emigrants in a crisis period. In absence of detailed data, the Indian Missions are facing tough time to rescue the emigrants, when they register complaints, admit officials.
Though from Odisha officially over 12,000 labourers are stated to be issued emigration clearance for working in foreign countries per annum, but the number is much more and both the State Government and Union Government have little data about them.
While in 2011, only 7,290 labourers were provided emigration clearance, in 2016, about 12,320 laboures were issued clearance from the State.
According to unofficial sources, over 50,000 emigrants from Odisha are moving to Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Sudan, Bahrain, Thailand, Oman and Qatar as mason, plumber, carpenter, electrician, welder, labourer and even housemaid.
And, the hopping number of complaints is received as some of these emigrants are harassed and tortured in the work place as most of them are moving with tourist visa and through illegal agents.
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik is also concerned as a large number of skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled workers from Odisha are employed in different parts of the world, particularly in Middle East and South East Asian countries and many a time, immigrants from Odisha face difficult situations, including exploitation by employers, economic hardships and accidents, etc.
The State Government does not possess details of persons from Odisha working as skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled labourer abroad and most of the time, the Government is reached by family members, informal contacts or by mediapersons whenever any immigrant faces a problem, pointed out officials.