Dubai: A landmark three-visa amnesty programme has been launched by the UAE on Wednesday to benefit hundreds of illegal foreign workers from different countries including India overstaying their permits. Under the programme the government will allow them to leave the country without any type of penalties and will give them a six months period to find a job.

The United Arab Emirates is home to approx. 2.8 million Indian expatriates, the largest expatriate community in the country. About 15 to 20 percent of them include professionally qualified personnel followed by 20 percent related to white collar non-professionals like the clerical staff, shop assistants, accountants, salesmen etc,. and the remaining ones making up 65 percent comprises blue collar workers.

Specific numbers were not released by the government but have stated that thousands of people, especially laborers from countries like India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Phillippines, Nepal will have an opportunity through the scheme which will help facilitate their smooth return to their home countries.

The entity responsible for entry and residence of foreigners in the UAE, the Federal Authority for Identity and Citizenship (ICA), has said that visa violators before August 1, 2018, will be able to rectify their status legally during the amnesty period, which is slated to end on October 31.

For those candidates who are under the blacklist or have legal cases against them are not eligible for any kind of amnesty. According to media reports, this is the third such amnesty announced by the UAE government in just over a decade.

Any of the candidates who are have overstayed have the option to exit the country without any payment of fines or facing jail or getting banned or they also have the option to rectify their status by getting a new-sponsored valid visa.

Tens of thousands of expatriates gathered outside their respective visa outsourcing agencies in different parts of the country as soon as the amnesty period started.

Not more than one Indian amnesty seeker turned up at the BLS International Centre in Abu Dhabi, the Indian Embassy’s outsourced agency for consular services, Gulf News reported.

“Only one person applied for emergency certificate as of 10.45am,” the newspaper quoted a senior Indian Embassy official as saying.

“It is just the first day. It is too early to talk about the trend,” he said.

The first to arrive at the main BLS Centre in Al Khaleej Centre in Dubai was the Indian workers and housemaids who had previously taken outpasses from their consulate.

They are mainly from the state of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh who said that they could not fly home with the outpasses as they had been fined for visa violations, the paper said.

“Then we heard about the amnesty and decided to wait till today. But when we went to Al Aweer amnesty centre in the morning we were told to renew the outpass as it is valid only till tomorrow,” said Swami S, who came along with three of his former co-workers.

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