Govt. has adopted 'multi-prolonged approach' to provide respite to wives deserted by NRI husbands

The Central government has adopted a "multi-prolonged approach" aimed at providing respite to the distressed Indian women who have been deserted by their NRI spouses.

Speaking at the Lok Sabha on Wednesday, Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan said that the measures have been taken in the wake of the about 4700 petitions received by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) between January 2016 and May 2019 from the aggrieved Indian woman facing this situation.

The MEA provides these women with the counselling, guidance, and information about legal procedures, as well as brief them about the mechanisms for serving the judicial summons on their spouses.

In addition, the government has revised the guidelines of the Indian Community Welfare Fund (ICWF) with an aim of providing financial and legal assistance to these women. The amount of legal and financial assistance to these women has also been increased to USD 4000 per case.

"Besides, with an aim to provide online consular assistance expeditiously to Indian nationals who are in distress abroad (including marital dispute), MADAD portal -- an online Consular Grievance Monitoring System -- was launched in 2015 and a module "Marital Disputes" was added to the portal to provide digital platform to the distressed Indian nationals married to NRIs," said Muraleedharan.

To provide a more effective solution to the problem, the government has introduced a bill in Rajya Sabha titled "The Registration of Marriage of Non-Resident Indian Bill, 2019"

The proposed legislation would offer greater protection to Indian citizens married to NRIs and help as a deterrent to the Non-Resident Indians against harassment of their spouses, and force the accused NRI spouse to come back to India to face the legal consequences of his overt and covert acts, concluded Muraleedharan.