Saudi Gazette report JEDDAH — Indian Consul General Faiz Ahmed Kidwai said here Thursday that the Consulate General will be operating at an optimal level to assist the community during the three-month grace period announced by Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah. “There has been no announcement of an amnesty by the Saudi government,” he said, adding, “basically this is an advance preparation for distributing Emergency Certificates and out-passes to those who do not have travel documents.” “The people most affected, and those who are making a beeline to the missions, are those on free visas, who are unaware of where their ‘kafeels' are, the people who are runaways, those declared Huroob, and of course, those in the red category of the Nitaqat program,” Kidwai said. The consulate is putting up tents for these visitors where they can stay during the course of their work. In addition a water stand has been erected and in an effort to reduce waiting time 10 application-filling counters have been set up for free. “We are preparing a ‘one-stop shop' so to say in order to facilitate the paper work of all visitors,” a consulate source said. “We hope to cut the turnaround period for all work per person to about two hours,” he said. Consul General Kidwai said: “We are planning ahead in anticipation of an amnesty from the Saudi government. In that event we would have a ready-made database of those seeking to leave (for various reasons) to give to the Saudi authorities.” “The embassy already has a database, and ours would just complement them. In addition we have a deputation center in the consulate (for Haj and Umrah overstayers) that takes care of them,” Kidwai said, adding, there are other arrangements being made too. “Forms can now be downloaded from our website, drop box (for the forms) locations have been identified, consulate tours for different regions will have an extra officer dedicated for EC issues, authorized CCWA members to take the forms and send to us, and a helpline has been opened,” Kidwai stressed, while calling on all to rectify their status. “Currently, we are working on possible avenues to help people get their documentations ready while working on the Kingdom's advisory and waiting for the Labor Ministry guidelines,” he said. After filling the form, the people can go to the eight exclusive counters opened in the vicinity for this purpose. Three volunteers will be guiding the visitors to the requisite counters. A canteen has been set up in addition to a photo center with a photocopying machine, both services are on payment. There is a paid service for getting the documentation for a nominal fee of SR5. The source said that the main purpose is to help people get their ECs — mostly for those whose passports have either expired or have been misplaced by their sponsors. “It will enable us to build a database that can also help if we need to share it with the Saudi authorities,” he said. He concurred what Kidwai said that the database would complement the one being created in Riyadh by the embassy. The embassy database already touched 50,000. “We expect to have about 30,000 in our database during this grace period,” the source added. “The numbers are realistic because we get at an average 1,000 people per day. It increases to about 1,500 on Saturdays, the day after the weekend,” he said, adding these arrangements are being made to speed up the process.
