Kerala has abandoned plans to charter flights from Saudi Arabia to bring back workers who had violated the Kingdom's visa laws. The workers would instead be given tickets on normal commercial flights.

K. C. Joseph, the state’s minister for nonresident affairs, said the authorities were forced to abandon the plan to operate special flights from Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam due to poor demand.

“We need at least 150 passengers to charter a flight. But the applications we received were far below that number,” the minister, who is currently in Sydney, Australia, said in a statement on Thursday.

The government decided to operate chartered flights from Nov. 20 to airlift stranded expatriates after the deadline for legalizing their job and residency status under the Nitaqat system ended on Nov. 3.

Advisory committees of expatriate volunteers were formed in the three Saudi cities to collect applications from those who registered at the Indian diplomatic missions before the deadline expired.

“So far, we have received only 110 applications from these three centers. So we decided to provide all of them with free tickets on regular commercial flights,” the minister said. “This decision was taken after discussions with the chief minister (Oommen Chandy).” Applications for free tickets should come through the advisory panels before Dec. 1.

So far, 14,956 expatriates who lost their jobs since April 2 have registered online and at the help desks of the Non-resident Keralites’ Affairs (Norka) department at the state’s three international airports.

The majority of the registrations (8,929) were done at the Kozhikode airport while 1,799 people opted for online registration. The Thiruvananthapuram International Airport here received 3,097 returnees.

Meanwhile, Faiz Ahmad Kidwai, consul general of India in Jeddah, said the mission was working with the Saudi authorities on the cases of workers who failed to use the amnesty.

“We have collated such cases in categories and sent them to various Saudi government offices, and handed them a letter and travel documents for facilitation of the process at a later date,” The Hindu newspaper quoted him as saying.

“I would like to stress that even those cases where we have not been able to complete the process are essentially work in progress and we hope to solve them in due course.”

He said a small number of Kerala-based individuals had sought exit visas because many had rectified their status during the grace period.

Even those who left the country during the grace period would have the option of returning to work in the Kingdom.

He said India's diplomatic mission in the Kingdom was "not only ahead of its counterparts in assisting Indians but also completed almost all their work in time.”

“We used our available resources, including community members and Indian international schools to disseminate information and help workers with their paperwork and legalization process during the grace period.”