All students, workers going overseas to be registered
9 Jul 2009, 2235 hrs IST, Himanshi Dhawan, TNN
Text:
NEW DELHI: As a fallout of racial attacks on Indians in Australia, the government plans to plug loopholes in legislation to bring under its ambit
all immigrants — students and workers — through a registration process. As of now, the ministry for overseas Indian affairs has data only on a small section of workers that require emigration clearance. For the first time, education agents and counsellors will also be brought under the law. The MOIA is likely to table the proposed amendments to Emigration Act 1983 in the next Parliament session. The proposed law will also change the definition of immigration to include "movement abroad for employment and studies". "We will make it mandatory for education agents to be registered and ensure that they comply by certain requirements. Students are often misled by unscrupulous agents who make unrealistic promises," Vayalar Ravi, overseas Indian affairs minister said. The amendments mandate a system of registration of all workers through the bureau of immigration. Students and skilled workers like doctors, software engineers, nurses will now have to be mandatorily registered. "It is our attempt to make the immigration process smoother rather than cause impediments. We would like to make immigration safer," K Mohandas, MOIA secretary, said. He added that in a bid to clamp down on recruiting agents, the ministry had a multi-pronged strategy that will swing in to motion when the amendments are approved. These include setting up of an independent statutory authority that will govern the agents and settle arbitration. Recruiting agents (RAs) will be empowered to provide emigration clearance subject to their instant online reporting to the Protectorate of Emigrants. This will be linked to departure points and the government will re-depute its inspectors in a monitoring role. Online monitoring will be conducted and penalty provisions are proposed to be increased from two years of imprisonment to five years and a penalty of Rs 5 lakh. RAs will also be rated by an independent agency and this will be put in the public domain. The ministry has also conveyed to the Australian government the need for pre-departure orientation that must be conducted by education institutions. The ministry plans to set up a joint working group with the Australian government to assess review of respective education laws and