Kerala announces an NRI commission

An NRI commission was finally set up by the Kerala government. Under the plan, a team of four members directed by a former judge of Indian High Court Justice P Bhavadas was declared as the commission.

The two out of four members of the current team are active NRI's living abroad and other two are former NRIs in which two are either presently living in the UAE or have been living in the UAE in past.

The director of the NRIs Commission is Dr Shamsheer Vayalil, who is an Abu Dhabi-based doctor and head of VPS Healthcare are among the members. He is the one who appealed the Supreme Court of India to get voting rights to the NRIs.

Bhagwat Singh, a former President of the Sharjah Indian Association is the second member of the team. He currently lives in Kerala.

A Bahrain-based Journalist Sohan Baby and a former chairman of the Kerala state government's Pravasi Welfare Board PMA Salam are the other members.

"The purpose of this commission will be to safeguard the interests of the NRIs and provide justice to their grievances. As the Director of this commission, I hope we will be able to do justice to all the NRIs and will strive hard in making this commission a way for them to reach out to various State and Central Government departments without any hassles," says Vayalil.

The quasi-judicial body will report all concerns of the diaspora including clashes over properties and investments as well as fake recruitments. The commission will allow to involve a lawyer for the diaspora complainants to appear before the panel and the complainant need not waste his/her time for resolving issues. The commission will organize the meetings in every three month to estimate its activities.

Keralites are one of the vivacious expat communities across the Middle East and the rest of the world. Around 2.5 million Keralites live abroad and deport about Dh65 billion yearly which is a fourth of all allowance India receives from its migrant community yearly.

At current, local courts handle the labor and commercial disputes with some amount of support from NORKA -the Non-Resident Keralites Affairs Department, set up in 1996 by the Government of Kerala.(Inputs from agencies)