Kerala diaspora can register online for survey

People from Kerala living outside India will now be able to get themselves registered online for a diaspora survey, a minister said Monday.

The state government decided to provide the online facility because of the demand from the Kerala diaspora, State Minister for Diaspora K.C. Joseph told IANS.

The government has asked members of the diaspora to get themselves registered online latest by Sep 20.

Close to 2.5 million people from Kerala are living outside India, most of them in the Middle East.

"The diaspora can register by visiting the websites www.norkaroots.net or www.ecostat.kerala.gov.in for taking part in the survey," he said.

There have been a lot of demand from the diaspora that since they were living outside the country, they may not be able to take part in the ongoing household diaspora survey that began May 1.

After the Centre announced an all-India survey on the diaspora, the Kerala government came up with a separate questionnaire to find out the basic information of the Kerala diaspora from every household.

Officials from the Kerala Bureau of Economics and Statistics, of which Joseph is in charge, will work on the all-India survey.

However, the survey will have no questions on the financial aspect of migrants, like remittances received and other such details.

The NORKA (Non-resident Keralite Affairs Department) is the nodal agency entrusted to do the state-wide survey. The state government has allocated Rs.1.95 crore to NORKA for the survey.