The Indian government has sent emergency aid to more than 10,000 of its citizens who are stranded in Saudi Arabia without money or food. Due to the sputtering Saudi economy, big companies are cutting on foreign workers.
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About 10,000 Indian workers are stranded in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait after being laid off from work.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said Monday that the government was arranging exit documents for those workers who wished to return to India.
She told the members that the Indian Mission in Riyadh has arranged free ration to the workers. “We will bring all of them back to India”, Swaraj said.
Hailing from a poor family in central India, Khan moved to Saudi Arabia in 2008, and began work on the palace project in December.
The Saudi government was forced to cut its spending previous year on the back of plummeting oil prices As a result, it created pressure on the financials of local construction companies.
“Large number of Indians has lost their jobs in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait”. Although the Saudi government has tried to implement labor reform, the violations have continued. “As a result our brothers and sisters in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait are facing extreme hardship”, she wrote.
Low-wage workers from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and other parts of South Asia form the backbone of the construction business in the Middle East.
“The last message I received on the issue was at 2.45 am today and I was informed that ration has been distributed among all the workers in five camps”, Swaraj said. It employed a total of 50,000 employees and 4,000 of them were Indians.
“Since July 25, the company had stopped providing meals to the workers besides defaulting on their salaries”, the sources here said.
Meanwhile, according to government sources MJ Akbar, Minister of State for External Affairs has been liasing with the Saudi Arabian authorities assuring that the claim of Indian workers for unpaid dues are lodged and processed.
“We provided food to 2,450 Indian workers in five camps on Saturday”, he said.
The economic slowdown in the Gulf Cooperation Council region following the fall in global crude oil prices has affected over 10,000 Indians, mostly working in the construction sector with factories shut down and workers laid off.
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Investigations revealed that local company Saudi Oger had not payed wages to thousands of employees for over 7 months! The minister emphasized that she is “personally monitoring the situation on hourly basis”.
