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Minister seeks facility for NRIs in country of residence

Dubai: The cold response to the historic granting of voting rights to Indian expatriates has prompted the Indian authorities to consider allowing expatriates the right to cast their votes in the diplomatic missions in the countries where they reside.

Minister for Overseas Indian Affairs) Vayalar Ravi has submitted a recommendation to this effect to the Election Commission of India.

Ravi said on Sunday that he is in favour of allowing Indian expatriates to cast their vote here, as this will ensure better participation in the voting process.

The recommendation asks the government to allow expatriates the right to register and enrol their names in the voters’ list as well as cast their vote in their countries of residence, rather than having to travel back home.

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Mandatory

This would mean the estimated 1.75 million Indians living in the UAE could participate in the election process of their country in a much better way.

Although the government recently granted voting rights to the 27 million expatriates across the globe, the elections saw negligible participation, since it is mandatory to be present in the constituency on the polling day.

Talks

Participation from the Gulf countries, according to some reports, was no more than 2,000 voters.

"We need to encourage more and more expatriates to exercise their voting rights," Ravi stressed.

The ministry is in talks with the Election Commission to simplify the process of voters’ list registration as well as to iron out some issues that have come up, he said.

Amendments will soon be finalised, he added.

Meanwhile, speaking at the news conference, Indian Ambassador to the UAE, M.K. Lokesh, stressed that the text messaging service charge of Dh7 and courier service charge of Dh39 were optional when applying for passport or visa services at BLS — the outsourced Indian passport and visa service centres.

Many customers, however, said they were not informed by the BLS staff members that these were optional and took advantage of their naivety.

Meeting in Dubai
For the first time, India will hold a regional annual diaspora meet, called mini-Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (Overseas Indians Day), here in Dubai.

The event will take place on October 12-13, according to Overseas Indian Affairs Minister Vayalar Ravi. Last year, it was held in Toronto, Canada.