JEDDAH – The number of workers who turned out at an "open house" at the Consulate General of India on Saturday was very low, according to officials and participants. Only about 75 Indian nationals approached the consulate to raise their consular, welfare and labor related issues, indicating that the open house, held after a gap of 10 months, received a poor response from the workers. The consulate officials, however, processed only final exit documents for Haj and Umrah overstayers. Speaking to Saudi Gazette, Consul General Faiz Ahmed Kidwai said: “We have received instructions from the passport authorities that they are now focusing on clearing cases of those who have overstayed their Haj and Umrah visas. They will take up other cases only after clearing this.” Kidwai said the consulate started registering names of those who want an exit and will process their applications after getting directions from the passport authorities. The consul general confirmed that there has been a sharp fall in the number of people who turned out to register their cases at the open house after the expiry of the amnesty period. “None of the complicated cases, which we had processed during the amnesty period, did come up again. From this, we assume that all these people were able to solve their problems.” Indians represent the biggest expatriate community in the Kingdom with 23 percent of the total foreign workforce in the country. They also topped the number of expatriates who took advantage of the seven-month amnesty period granted to illegal workers. A total of 1.4 million Indians have availed of the concessions to rectify their status while 141,000 others left the Kingdom without facing penalties. Apart from Kidwai, Consul (Labor) Prabhat K. Jain, Consuls (CW) S.R.H. Fahmy and Raj Kumar, Consul (Consular) Pranav Ganesh and Vice Consuls C.D. Jeyakumar and Nadeem Khan were on hand to assist the workers. Several community leaders were also present. They included P.T. Muhammad, Chairman of Jeddah Keralites Forum, leaders of Kerala Muslim Cultural Center (KMCC) such as Palayatt Ahmed, Abubacker Arimbra, P.M.A. Jaleel, K.V.A Ghafour, Majeed Pukayur, and V.P. Mustafa.
