Bengaluru, Jan 9: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday said the Centre will provide support and training for Indian youth seeking employment abroad.
“In the past, when people left the country for employment, it was referred to as brain drain. But we want to change this into brain gain,” he said.
PKVY, which was launched recently, will provide skill development and orientation to youth in their chosen field of vocation. “For those workers who seek economic opportunities abroad, our effort is to provide maximum facilitation and ensure least inconvenience,” Modi said.
In his speech delivered in English, peppered with Hindi, to a full house at the Bangalore International Exhibition Centre, Modi pointed out that the remittances made by overseas Indians stood at $69 billion, making it an “invaluable contribution” to the Indian economy. He hailed the contributions made by the Indian diaspora across the world, but stopped short of making any big-ticket announcement.
“We do not see the colour of the passports, but the relations written by blood matter the most,” he said.
Modi said the Centre has extended the last date for those holding Person of Indian Origin (PIO) cards to covert them into Overseas Indian Citizen (OIC) cards till June 30 this year without any penalty.
Earlier, the government had set December 2016 as the deadline. He said special counters will be set up at immigration points in the New Delhi and Bengaluru airports for OIC card holders, who will get the benefit of securing life-long visa for visiting India any number of times.
They will also be exempted from registration with the local police authority for any duration of stay in India.
The prime minister said new procedures and documentation requirements will be put in place so that Girmitiyas from India become eligible for OIC cards.
Girmitiyas are descendents of indentured Indian labourers of the last century hired by European countries to work on sugarcane plantations in their colonies. The descendents are mainly confined to Mauritius, Fiji, the Reunion Islands, Suriname, Guyana and Caribbean states.
“We are aware of the difficulties faced by Persons of Indian Origin from Girmitiya countries in obtaining an OIC card if they had moved abroad four or five generations ago,” he said.
The scheme will start with Mauritius and later extend to the other countries.Thank you, NRIs
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday thanked the Indian diaspora for supporting the Centre's move against corruption and called opponents of demonetisationpolitical worshippers' of black money, reports DHNS. Raising the demonetisation issue at the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas, Modi said, “Black money and corruption were gradually corroding our polity, economy, society and the country, and we launched a massive campaign against it. Some political worshippers (rajnaitik pujari) of black money did their best to portray our efforts as anti-people.”
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