Website launched for Andhra NRIs

In an effort to help Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) in the Gulf states, particularly Saudi Arabia, the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh has launched a Web portal to deal with various issues faced by the NRI community hailing from the state.
The launch of the Web portal by the state government comes in the backdrop of demands made by political parties in Andhra Pradesh for rehabilitation of Indian expatriate workers hailing from the state following the crackdown against undocumented worker in the Kingdom.
Non Resident Indian Affairs Minister D. Sridhar Babu inaugurated the Web portal www.apnri.ap.gov.in with the objective of providing NRIs from the state with an opportunity to interact with the state government back home in India.
The main objective of the portal is to collect information and data regarding NRI workers in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries to provide services pertaining to authentication of educational certificates, attestation of certificates and documents, through the portal.
Sridhar Babu said the NRI department in the General Administration Department had no database of NRIs settled or living abroad which was important for providing services and addressing issues related to them, media reports said. Besides, the portal would also help create awareness about black-listed agents involved in illegal immigration of workers.
The portal, in the initial stage, provides for online registration for authentication of educational certificates and online application for attestation of personal documents. Later, NRIs with valid visas going abroad to study or for employment can register in the AP NRI Registration by filling a form online. The department also proposes to link the website with the passport and Protector of Emigrants database, and the data collected will be used for policy interventions and also for tracking illegal migrants at a later stage.
The State-level pilot project will initially cover five districts of Adilabad, Kadapa, Karimnagar, Nizamabad and West Godavari with Hyderabad as headquarters for creating management information and application system of NRI Affairs on migration profiling and other online services.
A help desk will be established at the Hyderabad airport with the database available with passport portal linkage.
Reports quoting Sridhar Babu said the Overseas Indians Affairs Ministry wanted the state government to create a database of overseas Indians hailing from the state on migration/immigration profiling in order to address their issues more effectively.
The Andhra Pradesh government is also considering sending an official team to Saudi Arabia to study state NRI issues here.