Illegal immigration makes survey on Punjab NRIs futile

Sunday, 15/07/2012

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/nri/other-news/Illegal-immigration-makes-survey-on-Punjab-NRIs-futile/articleshow/14925728.cms

For a state which claims the "highest" number of NRIs from the country, it has become a matter for embarrassment and concern for the Punjab government that there are no figures available on the exact number of Punjabis abroad. A door-to-door campaign by the government in villages and cities seeking replies to number of family members abroad have met with severe hostility, on account of illegal immigrations, compelling the government to abandon the project.

Ask the Punjab government about how many Punjabis are living abroad and you would get a baffling reply.

" We have no figures on this whatsoever,"says the NRI minister Bikramjit Singh Majithia. He is ready with an explanation, though, " we need to know how many Punjabis are living abroad and for this we launched a massive door-to-door information gathering campaign. Our representatives went to villages armed with questionnaires. But the fact that many people have gone through illegal ways and are not living legally abroad, our campaign met with stiff opposition and hostility,"he said.

NRI commissioner Ramesh Kumar Janta told TOI, " Data collection on the number of Punjabi NRIs has become a huge challenge. The teams of deputy commissioners could hardly gather any inputs as villagers refused to part with information about their relatives. In fact there was such hostility that the project was dropped. But we are going to take it up again."

Now, the state is turning to Gujarat to see how they have done the NRI census since the Gujarat government has come out with a smart card for non-resident Gujaratis that gives a string of incentives to the community. The card entails several benefits for the holders. They can avail up to 30 per cent discount on any purchase at 50 malls, hotels and traditional Indian garment stores the state government has tied up with.

" Even states like Gujarat and Kerala would have their share of illegal immigrations. A team from Gujarat was with us to study our NRI police stations and we are trying to find out how have they gathered information and how authentic is that," said Janta.

Majithia said the government is not "really interested to know how entry was made into foreign lands." "People fear acknowledging illegal immigration for they think it might create problems for NRIs in their foreign homes. But we have to address these fears and convince people that the information will not be used against them," said Majithia.