UAE | Visa
New amnesty centre opened at school for illegal workers
Nearly 30,000 illegal workers have become legal residents since the three-month general amnesty was announced in June.
- By Sunita Menon, Staff Reporter
- Published: 00:12 July 20, 2007
- Image Credit: Sunita Menon/Gulf News
- The Our Own English High School, Dubai, now houses counters that can conduct fingerprinting and iris scan for Indian amnesty seekers.
Dubai: Nearly 30,000 illegal workers have become legal residents since the three-month general amnesty was announced in June this year.
The Dubai Naturalisation and Residency Department (DNRD) opened a temporary centre yesterday at Our Own English High School on Oud Mehta Road, next to the Iranian Club.
Brigadier Mohammad Ahmad Al Merri, Director of DNRD, yesterday said the amnesty figures are "encouraging" and that about 60,000 illegal workers of various nationalities have approached the department to date.
"We have issued 29,387 emergency certificates. About half of them have exited the country and I expect more to leave by the first week of August. An additional 29,909 illegals have got themselves regularised. These figures are quite encouraging and I am glad that companies in the UAE have come forward to help out people to regularise their status," Al Merri said.
Fully-equipped
He urged companies to keep application boxes at the amnesty centres in the UAE. "You will be able to recruit experienced labourers," he said.
Al Merri was speaking at the opening of the DNRD centre. The school can accommodate about 1,000 amnesty seekers each day and will operate from 7.30am to 4pm every day until August 25.
Indian amnesty seekers now need not travel to the DNRD centre in Jumeirah to get iris scan and fingerprinting done. It can be done at Our Own English High School as soon as the worker gets the emergency certificate from the amnesty centre opened by the Indian consulate at the Indian High School. Both schools are at a walking distance from each other.
"The DNRD centre at the school was opened after we studied the facilities available at the premises. It turned out to be quite satisfactory," said Al Merri.
He said the centre is fully-equipped and has enough manpower to attend to hundreds of labourers coming to get fingerprinting and iris scan done prior to leaving the country.
Venu Rajamony, Indian consul general, said the consulate will provide volunteers who are fluent in Indian languages like Telugu, Hindi, Malayalam and Tamil.
"We have also approached the Sharjah immigration authorities to carry out a similar exercise. We have obtained all Indian passports from them and hopefully it will be handed over back to the respective holders in a couple of days," said Rajamony.
"I appeal to all Indian amnesty seekers to come forward and avail of the facilities before August 25 as schools are set to re-open on September 1 after the summer break," he added.
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