Saudi King assisting stranded Indian workers: Sushma Swaraj

The Saudi king has instructed his officials to resolve the issue in two days.

Saudi Arabia today agreed to swiftly resolve plight of thousands of laid-off Indian workers including providing them free passage to return to India and clearing their unpaid dues after Union Minister V K Singh apprised the Saudi government about the humanitarian crisis. General V.K. Singh is there.

The Minister said the Saudi government has clarified that it will issue Exit Visas to all the workers and also ensure that they will be sent back to India at the expenses of the Saudi Government.

In a separate report, Deutsche Welle (DW), Germany’s global broadcaster, noted that thousands of people from South and Southeast Asia migrate every year to Saudi Arabia and other Middle East nations.

Emergency food packets being prepared by Indian NGOs for distribution at workers’ camps in Jeddah.

“They have also permitted that those who are found suitable may be given another job”, she said.

Riyadh- Saudi Labor Minister Mufarrej al-Haqbani expressed Saudi readiness to cover all expenditures of Indian labor workers wishing to go back home, in addition to the provision of legal aid to those in pursuit of legal justice against companies responsible for holding back salaries or other damages.

The director-general of the Labour Ministry office in the Mecca region promised “swift and immediate” steps to help about 2,500 Indian workers of Saudi Oger who had been without pay for months, according to the Arabic language Okaz newspaper.

“I am thankful to the Saudi government for the very positive attitude and magnanimity”, he said. Over the weekend, hundreds of employees of Saudi Oger, owned by the Lebanese Hariri family and run by former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, staged rare protests in the western Red Sea city of Jiddah. In addition to that, their work permits have also not been renewed by companies which employed them.

Saudi Arabia, like other oil-rich Gulf countries, depends heavily on Asian migrant workers, mainly from India, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

Gen. Singh (Retd) is now in Saudi Arabia to discuss the problems of the Indian workers there and had visited Jeddah and capital Riyadh earlier on Wednesday.

She also thanked the Saudi king and his government for their efforts, attributing India’s diplomatic success to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

While Saudi Arabia has over three million expatriate Indians, there are over 800,000 of them in Kuwait.

Abdallah al-Olayan was quoted as acknowledging that workers had suffered “hardships” after a contractor with the parent company cut off power supplies to them.