Sharjah: Indians in the UAE now have one more support centre to address their grievances.
The Indian Ambassador to the UAE Navdeep Singh Suri on Sunday afternoon opened the Indian Workers’ Resource Centre (IWRC) in Sharjah.
The Sharjah Centre on the 22nd floor of Damas Tower (Burj 2000) opposite the Central Post Office is the second office of the IWRC in the UAE after the one in Dubai that currently caters to Indians in all seven emirates.
As first reported by Gulf News in July 2016, the Ministry of External Affairs decided to open a second centre in Sharjah considering the high number of Indian population in the emirate and easy access for those living in the northern emirates as well.
Suri said the office building was chosen considering the fact that it is in a central area and also houses the BLS Centre, the outsourced agency which provides Indian passport and visa services.
The walk-in counter at the new office will receive petitions directly from Indian in distress from 8am to 8pm from Saturday to Thursday. The walk-in services provided by the IWRC Dubai at the Silver Tower, Cluster-I in Jumeirah Lakes Towers will be offered at the new office in Sharjah office as well.
Inaugurated in November 2010 by the then Indian President Pratibha Patil, IWRC Dubai runs a 24-hour toll-free helpline (800 INDIA or 800 46342) that offers assistance to Indians in distress in the UAE.
The centre provides counselling by experts in legal, psychological and financial matters by phone or email and in person.
The IWRC helpline offers assistance in five languages — Hindi, English, Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu.
All the calls are registered and a reference number is given to the caller for future reference. A date and time are allotted for the callers for counselling sessions, which can be conducted in various parts of the UAE if required.
Apart from the helpline number, the resource centre has a walk-in-counter in Dubai to receive petitions directly from Indian workers, which works between 8am to 8pm from Saturday to Thursday.
The awareness campaigns such as talks by experts, seminars, panel discussions or question and answer sessions are organised frequently. The individual counselling sessions are arranged for serious issues only.
While the Sharjah IWRC will run the walk-in Centre and conduct awareness programmes, the helpline will continue to be operated by the Dubai office, Suri said.
