Indian government officials plan to introduce a system of checks to stop construction labourers from the country entering the UAE on visitor visas and working illegally.
The Indian Consultate has recently come under fire from Dubai’s Permanent Committee for Labour Affairs.
In an interview with Construction Week, Yash Sinha, the Consul General of India, said that a checking system would soon be introduced.
But he warned: “We cannot ban workers from entering the country on visit visas. “So what the government will most probably do is introduce a system where trained immigration personnel will check if a worker is travelling to another country on a visit visa in order to look for a job, or is going strictly for a visit.
“If a worker is found travelling to look for work, he will be stopped from travelling. The reason why we have to implement this is because labourers are travelling to the Gulf countries on visit visas and then work illegally,” he said.
Relations between the Indian Consulate and the Permanent Committee for Labour Affairs have been strained as the construction sector has been hit by a series of strikes and protests in recent months, over pay and conditions.
A large proportion of Indian nationals working on building sites in the UAE are thought to be doing so illegally.
“Some of them who don’t find work, later abscond, and then it becomes a big problem for the authorities here and for us as well,” he said.
According to UAE labour law, it is illegal to work in the country on a visit visa.
“But at the moment, no decision has been taken on how to control this problem. Everything is still in the planning stages and we are still assessing the situation,” added Sinha.
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