Mangaluru: There are over 13,000 non residential Indians including those from Karnataka, employed in Kuwait. But the new educational qualification law being passed by the Kuwait administration may force Indians to return back to their motherland. Due to this law the lives of more than 2500 engineering employees along with their families from Dakshina Kannada and the west coast of India will be thrown into disarray.

It is compulsory for expatriate engineers in Kuwait to get a no-objection certificate from Kuwait Engineers Society (KES) to renew their residency permits through the labour department, said Kuwait Public Authority for Manpower (PAM).

Indian engineers will suffer the most because of this law. Stuck in such a serious problem, the Indian engineers have requested help from External affairs minister Shusma Swaraj and Prime Minister Modi through a tweet. But, till date the Indian government has shown no response.

According to information, there are over 90.000 Indian in Kuwait. More than 13,000 among them are engineers. Persons from Karnataka are more among them with close to 2500 persons from Dakshina Kannada, Udupi and other parts of coastal Karnataka. According to the new law, if the engineers fail to receive the NOC, close to 90% of the engineers will lose their jobs and have to return back to India.

On March 11th, Kuwait Public Authority for Manpower sent a circular to all labour departments to renew the residency permits of expatriate engineers only if thye compulsorily obtain no-objection certificate from Kuwait Engineers Society (KES). If the engineer fails to get NOC from KES, it will be impossible for him to renew his work visa. KES will now give NOC to only those engineers whose degrees belong to those educational institutions that KES has validated. It’s been ordered that the current expat engineers whose degrees do not belong to the list of educational institutions approved by KES shall not get their residential permits renewed.

The new law has many clauses and will affect the ambitions of new engineers planning to go to the Middle East for employment. To get NOC from KES, the college or university from where the engineer has received his degree must be accredited by National Board of Accreditation (NAB). This is another problem that has emerged from the implementation of this law.

Hence, the union government will have to give proper direction to all the engineering colleges and universities. Engineering colleges and universities will have to show their commitment to get accredited by the NBA.

There has been a rule that expat engineers should be a member of KES. But the rules were not this strict. Now, one has to write a qualification exam and pass. Those with engineering degrees that do not have NAB accreditation are not allowed to attempt the qualification exam.