The Centre has informed the Kerala High Court that there was no immediate plan to bring back the Indian citizens stranded in the Gulf countries due to the novel coronavirus outbreak and that the expatriates had been granted visa extension.
The counsel for the central government made the submission before a division bench comprising justices Rajavijayaraghavan and TR Ravi during the hearing of a plea seeking a direction to bring back Indians stranded in the UAE.
Permission of the Gulf countries was required to send medical teams there to carry out medical examination of the stranded Indians, the counsel said when the court sought to know the Centre’s view on Kerala government sending medical teams to the Gulf countries to deal with the issue of COVID-19 disease among Malayalees there.
The court posted the plea for April 21 for consideration after the Central government informed that a similar petition is under consideration of the Supreme Court.
In its plea, Kerala Muslim Cultural Centre (KMCC) in Dubai, the organisation for non-resident Indians from Kerala, sought directions to the Ministries of External Affairs and Civil Aviation to provide exemptions in the international air travel ban to bring back Indians stranded in the UAE.
The petitioners noted that those who return could be kept in quarantine as per the protocol of the World Health Organisation
The state government has raised the issue of expatriates in UAE to the Centre on multiple occasions. In the video conference of Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Chief Ministers of the states, Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan had asked the Centre to look into the possibility of bringing back expatriates.
Earlier this month, Vijayan had also written a letter to Prime Minister Modi due to complaints from Keralites in UAE that there is an inadequacy of safe facilities for those living in labour camps and also in quarantine.
However, Kerala’s biggest challenge will be the mass influx of Non-Resident Keralites (NRKs) — particularly, Gulf Malayalees— in the period post-lockdown.
The COVID-19 pandemic and the resultant global economic recession will leave lakhs of people furloughed or jobless in the coming months. In this bleak scenario, Kerala, which has a sizable chunk of Gulf migrants, expects hundreds of thousands of its expats to return home enmasse, once the lockdown is lifted.
There are about three million Malayalees scattered around the gulf nations and the state government expects a minimum of 100,000 people to fly in to Kerala (post lockdown). “It could go up to even 300,000 or 400,000 people. We cannot rule out this possibility,” Minister Thomas Isaac told a TV channel.
To quarantine the arriving non-residents, the state has identified close to 2.5 lakh rooms in various districts, which will be converted to COVID-19 quarantine centres. Rooms in hostels, hotels, sundry public buildings and even private houses and flats which are vacant have been identified for this purpose, Isaac added.