Issues of Indians in Gulf need to be addressed: MOIA secy

Issues pertaining to living conditions of Indian labourers working in the Gulf countries, who are contributing in the form of remittances, "need to be addressed", Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs Secretary A K Agarwal said today.
Agarwal was speaking on the the benefits of international mobility and impact of immigration on local labour market at an event organised by industry body FICCI in association with Cambridge University Press here.
"People talk a lot about white collar, blue collar, but the fact is that the labours in the Gulf countries are contributing a lot through remittances and issues pertaining to their living conditions and work process needs to be addressed," Agarwal said.

A book, 'India-EU People Mobility: Historical, Economic and Regulatory Dimensions', which consists of a representative collection of research studies carried out under a European Commission funded project was launched on the occasion.
Speaking on the issue of social security for migrants, Agarwal said that India already has in place social security agreement with many EU nations and some other are in the offing and added that the need was to operationalise these agreements in the right earnest.
Maurizio Cellini, First Counsellor and Head of Trade and Economic Affairs, Delegation of the European Union to India, said that a "well-managed" migration policy and regulatory framework is bound to lead to economic and social growth of India and the EU.

Rupa Chandra, co-editor of the book, emphasised the need for "policy focus" and "immigration policy framework" and stressed on the the necessity to reform visa issues.
"We did a survey and tried to understand the constraints that the students are facing...It came out clearly that they are looking at market in terms of staying on there and work, so obviously visa issues matters. The cost of education is a major issue so providing financial scholarship is also very important.