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Monday, Feb 16, 2009
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They are returning home after losing jobs

Afshan Yasmeen and Laiqh Khan

Indians in Dubai waiting for academic year to end before bringing families back

‘The situation is bad there and I was forced to return with my family’
There is no factual information yet: Indian Ambassador

Bangalore: With the economic slowdown hitting Dubai, long considered to be a job seekers’ paradise, a large number of expatriate Indians have begun losing their jobs and heading homewards.

After a 10-year-stint in Dubai, Usman returned to Bangalore after his company began terminating the services of employees. “The situation is bad there and I was forced to come back with my family,” he said.

The relatives of Parveen Sultana, a Bangalore girl working for a subsidiary of an Italian company in Sharjah, the emirate adjacent to Dubai, are worried that a similar prospect was staring at her in the face. With more than 200 employees laid off, Ms. Sultana has informed her relatives about the uncertainty of her job too.

“She might return to India anytime,” her relative said. A large number of Indians working in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), of which Dubai is part, are haunted by job losses and salary cuts as the global economic meltdown grips many oil-rich West Asian countries.

Construction industry

Joint Secretary of Malabar Muslim Association M.K. Naushad said many Indians work in the construction industry, which had been growing at a phenomenal pace in view of Dubai’s economic growth.

With the construction industry in Dubai and other parts of UAE coming to a near standstill now, many blue collared expatriates are finding it hard to continue there. “We have learnt that the companies are cutting salaries by 20 per cent to 30 per cent,” he said.

An expatriate from Karnataka in Dubai told The Hindu over phone that there could be an exodus after the annual school examinations in March-April this year.

“Many Indians are only waiting for the examinations to get over so that they can collect the transfer certificates (TC) for admission of their children in India,” the expatriate from Karnataka said

Unpaid EMIs

A leading bank in the UAE has reportedly taken possession of cars it had financed after buyers parked them in the airports of Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah before boarding their flights to India.

“Our bank recovered more than 600 cars in January. These are the figures of only our bank for a month. The same may be the case with other banks too,” the manager of the bank told The Hindu over phone from Dubai.

Bulk bookings

Venu Rajamony, Indian Consul General in Dubai, recently said that around 20,000 Indian workers in the UAE are being dislocated because of the economic downturn. Indian carriers have bulk bookings for March.

However, Indian Ambassador Talmiz Ahmad contradicted Mr. Rajamony’s statement saying that there was no factual information on the numbers.

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