New support centre to cater to Indian workers

The Government of India will soon open a welfare centre for workers in Sharjah, Navdeep Singh Suri, the Indian Ambassador to the UAE told Khaleej Times.

The Sharjah office will be the second Indian Workers Resource Centre (IWRC) in the UAE. The first IWRC was opened in Dubai in 2010, and functions as a welfare arm of the Indian embassy. And it currently caters to the 2.6 million Indian expats living in the UAE.

"The approvals have come from the government and we are already moving forward with the implementation. The new centre will cater to the Indian workers in Sharjah and peripheral areas," Suri said.

Though the exact location of the centre is not known, an embassy official said it will be centrally located and will serve Indian workers in Sharjah and the Northern Emirates.

"Various things have been considered while choosing Sharjah as the location. There is an increase in the number of Indian expats, and also a concentration of workers in Sharjah and the Northern Emirates. The centre will be located at a place easily accessible to workers," said Dinesh Kumar, first secretary, community affairs at the embassy.

He said the new centre will provide similar services like that of the IWRC in Dubai, with the only difference being there will not be a toll-free helpline number.

"The Dubai office handles the helpline for all of the UAE, and hence there is no need to have a separate toll-free for Sharjah."

Distressed Indians can call IWRC's 24/7 multi-lingual helpline (80046342) and seek help in five languages - Hindi, English, Malayalam, Telugu and Tamil. The centre addresses the grievances of its community members through its experts who offer free legal, psychological, and financial counselling.

Like Dubai, Kumar said the Sharjah Centre will also have a walk-in counter where workers can submit petitions and seek appointments with experts.

In the first six months of 2017, the centre in Dubai received 11,700 calls and 640 visitors.

The IWRC also conducted 589 legal counselling sessions, 31 personal counselling sessions and 33 financial counselling sessions. Between the opening of the centre in November 2010 and till July 2016, it received 105,596 phone calls and 5,186 messages by fax, email and SMS.

Source: Khaleej Times