RIYADH, 10 January 2004 — The Riyadh-based NRI Gulf Forum has urged the Indian government to provide equal educational opportunities to the children of Non-Resident Indians and not discriminate against them on account of their parents’ overseas employment.

The appeal was made by the forum’s president, Syed Ahmed Ziauddin, at the start of the three-day second annual meeting of the Indian diaspora in New Delhi.

The NGF is a non-profit organization run by Indian expatriates in the Gulf. Ziauddin, who has in the past written to President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam and Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, spoke at the conference to highlight the plight of NRIs in the Gulf. An advance copy of his speech was made available to Arab News before his departure.

Ziauddin, who is a senior executive at the Saudi Hollandi Bank, pointed out that Gulf NRIs had to face the ordeal of the NRI quota system in local and non-local categories. “The great stumbling block is the exorbitant fees NRIs have to pay for admission of their children to educational institutions in India.”

He said the Gulf NRIs cannot afford the tuition fees demanded by self-financing private institutions.

There are no colleges in the Gulf where children of NRIs can get admission after they complete school. Resident Indians get admission in colleges in their respective states. Not so the children of the NRIs who face the stiff quota system, he said.

There are 3.5 million Indians working in the Middle East, out of whom 1.6 million are based in the Kingdom. These workers remit annually around $8 billion to India. Half of this remittance comes from Saudi Arabia.

This remarkable contribution, Ziauddin said, should be appreciated and reciprocated in terms of reasonable facilities and privileges from the Indian government.

He made it clear that the forum did not seek any preferential treatment for NRIs but was firmly against any form of discrimination.

Ziauddin also demanded voting rights for NRIs, the establishment of ministries at federal and state levels and employment opportunities for those returning from the Gulf.