Has Riyadh agreed to liberalise near prison-like conditions of work for Indians?
In fact, the largest number of Indians in the Gulf are in Saudi Arabia. So far they have not agreed to make any changes in their labour laws. However, we have not given up on that front — India continues to enjoy tremendous goodwill across the region. We, at our end, have not been able to check the problem of illegal immigrants. Does this bother you? Yes, last year alone, of some 640,000 Indians who went to Gulf countries, 532,000 went on visit visas. A majority of such people do not come back and start working there. In turn they are also exploited as indentured labourers by the companies there. I was amazed to learn that Hyderabad is becoming the major exit route for illegal immigrants. In the UAE alone, of the 62,000 illegal immigrants from India (who were granted amnesty recently), 45,000 are from Hyderabad. As I looked deeper into the problem, I realised that at the international airport in Hyderabad the immigration checking is done by the local police and not the IB (Intelligence
