Ahmed

New Delhi, Feb. 1: The impasse over the labour agreement between India and Kuwait continues.

The minister of state for external affairs, E. Ahmed, has taken up the matter at the top levels but the Gulf nation has not shown any sign of lifting the ban on work visas for Indians.

While both countries have expressed hope that the issue will be resolved soon, the stalemate has put thousands of job-seekers in a spot. The Kuwait embassy in Delhi and its consulate in Mumbai have stopped issuing visas since the third week of December.

Sources said trouble started when the Gulf nation objected to some “clauses” that India included in the “framework” of the labour contract prescribed by Kuwait. Some of these clauses would require the minimum wage for maids (women domestic helps) to be fixed at Rs 15,000 a month and their sponsors to be under the embassy’s “constant watch” over working conditions.

Kuwait is home to around 550,000 Indians, many of whom work as contract labourers.

Officials in the overseas Indian affairs ministry said the welfare measures suggested by India “were in the spirit of the Indian Emigration Act, 1983, and not new”.

The Centre examined the objections and told Kuwait the clauses would not affect the labour laws in that country.

The ambassador to Kuwait, M. Ganapathy, was holding talks with the authorities. Overseas Indian affairs minister Vayalar Ravi also discussed the matter with Ganapathy.

Ahmed, whose visit to Kuwait ended yesterday, also took up the matter with Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammad Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah and other senior ministers.