TRIVANDRUM, 25 November — Kerala has promised to set up an agency to exclusively handle investments by the state’s large expatriate community.
Non-Resident Keralite (NRK) Minister M.M. Hassan announced that the state government would set up a corporation to promote investments by the 1.6 million-strong expatriate community, most of whom live in the Middle East, and look into their welfare.
Hassan said the corporation would replace the existing Non-Resident Keralite Welfare Agency (NORKWA).
A corporation, he said, would have wider scope than an agency to handle the expatriates’ problems and the proposal for its constitution would be placed before the cabinet soon. He promised an early decision on the corporation’s formation.
A source in the Department of Non-Resident Keralites Affairs (NORKA) said prime among the corporation’s tasks would be to draw up viable projects for investment by expatriates.
"This request had come up before the government when the two-day meet in Cochin in August with hundreds of NRK businessmen and organizations took place and since then the government has been toying with the idea of setting up a corporation," the NORKA official said. Meanwhile, Hassan reiterated that a meeting would be held here on Dec. 18 to discuss the problems of expatriates who had returned to Kerala.
"As of today, close to 230 organizations (of returned expatriates) have already registered and many more are expected to register," he said. A Center for Development Studies report presented to the government in August estimated that 750,000 expatriates had come back home and warned that the rate of their return was on the increase.
The report said Malappuram district accounted for the largest number of returned migrants with 123,000 followed by Trivandrum district with 118,000 and Thrissur with 116,000.
The report said 41.2 percent had returned from Saudi Arabia, followed by 11.4 percent from Dubai (the United Arab Emirates, UAE), 9.9 percent from Muscat (Oman), 8.5 percent from Abu Dhabi (UAE) and 6 percent each from Sharjah (UAE) and Bahrain.
While 37.8 percent of the returned expatriates were now self-employed, 26 percent were engaged in non-agricultural labor, seven percent were unemployed and a mere 6.4 percent could afford to live off their savings. Only 2.2 percent of the returned migrants had got government jobs and five percent were working for the private sector.
