New Delhi: After Kuwait’s National Assembly approved a draft expat quota bill seeking to reduce the number of foreign workers in the Gulf country, India on Thursday said it is closely following the developments and have shared its expectations with Kuwait city.
It would jeopardise the status of eight lakh Indians in the Gulf country.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has discussed this issue with his Kuwaitis counterpart.
“We are closely following the developments in Kuwait. This matter has been discussed between Foreign Ministers of India and Kuwait. We share excellent bilateral ties which are deeply rooted in people to people linkages,” foreign ministry spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said during virtual weekly press briefing here.
Further, he added that the Indian community is well-regarded in Kuwait and elsewhere in the Gulf region and their contributions are well recognised. “We have shared our expectations that Kuwait’s decision will take into account,” the spokesperson said.
The National Assembly’s legal and legislative committee has determined that the expat quota bill is constitutional.
According to the bill, Indians should not exceed 15 per cent of the population. This could result in 8,00,000 Indians leaving Kuwait, as the Indian community constitutes the largest expat community in the country, totalling 1.45 million, the Gulf News reported, citing a Kuwaiti newspaper.
The current population of Kuwait is 4.3 million, with Kuwaitis making up 1.3 million of the population, and expats accounting for 3 million.
Last month, Kuwait’s Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah Al Khalid Al Sabah proposed reducing the number of expats from 70 per cent to 30 per cent of the population, the report said.
According to the Indian embassy in Kuwait, there are about 28,000 Indians working for the Kuwaiti Government in various jobs like nurses, engineers in national oil companies and a few as scientists.
The majority of Indians (5.23 lakh) are employed in private sectors.
In addition, there are about 1.16 lakh dependents. Out of these, there are about 60,000 Indian students studying in 23 Indian schools in the country.
Kuwait is a top source of remittances for India. In 2018, India received nearly $4.8 billion from Kuwait as remittances.
