Aid for Keralites who lose jobs

The National

Aid for Keralites who lose jobs

By Praveen Menon

February 22. 2009

DUBAI Thousands of Indians expected to return home from the Middle East after losing their jobs will receive loans from a regional government to help them re-establish themselves.

The southern Indian state of Kerala announced that a 1 billion rupee (Dh74 million) loan package had been devised to help repatriated people from the region set up small businesses at home.

TM Thomas Isaac, the state finance minister, told the state assembly over the weekend that by the end of June, 200,000 people were expected to return from the Middle East, and most to Kerala, as a result of the global economic downturn.



He also budgeted an additional 100m rupees (Dh7.4m) for people forced to return after less than two years abroad. Officials said a registry would be set up for the returning workers and that money would be allocated according to need.

Mr Isaac announced the package as he presented his annual budget to the state assembly on Friday.

Some Indian residents of the UAE said yesterday that the announcement was a first step in recognising the problem, but the amount of money in the programme was not enough.



“It is the first time that the state has taken this step and I welcome it,” said KV Shamsudeen, the chairman of Pravasi Bandhu Welfare Trust, which helps and advises Indians who live in Gulf countries.

“However, I think this is only a token amount.”

Kerala’s economy is struggling with reduced trade and decreasing amounts of money sent home from citizens working abroad.

“It is not just remittances that are affecting the state. Popular exports such as cashew nuts, pepper, ginger, rubber and marine products have also come down considerably,” Mr Shamsudeen said.


“With the general elections coming up, this is just an effort to appease the voter community,” said NP Ramachandran, the general secretary of the Indian Overseas Congress in Dubai. “Expatriate Indians send millions to India as remittances each year and the package offered is dismal.”

Mr Ramachandran said the government needed to clarify how the loans would be made available.

“We need a more realistic plan than to just offer loans,” he said. “A lot of qualified professionals are returning home and a package is needed to accommodate them in jobs as well as businesses.”



Mr Ramachandran said expatriate Malayalis in the UAE were preparing a complaint that would be sent to the state government next week.

Mr Shamsudeen proposed that a database of redundant professionals returning to India be set up.

“Such a database would help India re-employ these people back home,” he said.

About 25 per cent of the remittances to India go to Kerala, according to a study by the Centre for Development Studies in Trivandrum, Kerala.



The study said that 1.9 million Malayalis lived outside India, with about 90 per cent of them in the Middle East, especially in the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

This month, Vayalar Ravi, the minister for overseas Indian affairs, said he would approach Manmohan Singh, the prime minister, with a plan to offer financial support to repatriates.