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India Will Evacuate Laid-Off Workers From Saudi Arabia

“Saudi King has instructed the officials to resolve the issue in two days”, she said.

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The company had for months been unable to pay workers’ salaries.

“I will be visiting Jeddah and two other places and will go to labour camps to see that the workers get the basic essential things”, said Jaleel.

“What happened was an individual act by one company which did a mistake”, the minister told the media following a meeting with visiting Indian State Minister of External Affairs VK Singh.

Saudi government officials were also not available to speak about the reported takeover proposal.

India is in talks with Saudi authorities for a relaxation to these rules so the Indians can be flown back in quickly.

The conglomerate Saudi Oger Limited had employed numerous stranded Indian workers, and held on to their passports, as is the case with low-income migrant workers throughout the Gulf.

The government, Swaraj said, was in touch with the foreign and labour offices in Saudi Arabia to ensure early evacuation of affected Indians.

Riyadh would also honour workers’ claims against companies that had defaulted on payments and had agreed to allow workers to transfer to other companies in the kingdom, he said.

Almost 10,000 Indians stranded in Saudi Arabia will be evacuated and no one will go hungry as ration has been distributed to them, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said in Parliament on Monday. They caused traffic disruptions and shut down a gas station, the report said.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Wednesday directed the Minister for Overseas Pakistanis to immediately proceed to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) as more than 8000 Pakistani workers remain stranded there facing shortage of food after not being paid by their employers.

“We can not leave our workers in a crisis”.

As per rules, no foreign employee can leave the country without NoC by the employers.

Meanwhile, activists and officials said Tuesday that thousands of jobless Indians, Filipinos and Pakistanis are stranded and destitute in Saudi Arabia following a sharp drop in the price of crude.

The company had also laid off tens of thousands of employees because of financial difficulties.

Swaraj also said that all Indians who live in five worker complexes or camps in and around the city of Jeddah were provided with food rations by the Indian government for the next week.

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However, the ministry said that most workers wanted their money before leaving the companies.

A worker walks past a container ship at Mundra Port in the western Indian state of Gujarat. Nearly 10,000 Indian workers laid off of their jobs in Saudi Arabia were stranded without enough money for food. REUTERS  Amit Dave  File