Saudi Gazette report

Dubai — India’s flagship workers’ protection program, eMigrate system, has come in for criticism from the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

In 2015, India launched online registration system called eMigrate for foreign employers interested in hiring Indian workers.

“India wants to build a databank to extract information about these companies in the UAE. We consider this a breach of our sovereignty,” UAE Ambassador to India Dr. Ahmed Al Banna was quoted as saying by The Hindu.

He told the Indian newspaper that he has raised the issue with the Ministery of External Affairs Secretary for Overseas Indian Affairs Dnyaneshwar Mulay.

Dr. Banna also reportedly met Prime Minister’s Principal secretary Nripendra Mishra on May 15.

According to the UAE ambassador, the concerns are not restricted to India’s database of foreign employers in that country, but includes the eMigrate program’s mandate to inspect premises of UAE companies.

“Some information only the UAE government or concerned ministry is allowed to [collect]. It is also not in the Embassy or Consulate’s ambit to conduct inspections, and we have taken strong objection to that. This is not India’s work, this is ours. We have offered Indian authorities that we will give them the information they desire,” Dr. Al Banna added.

India launched the eMigrate system after receiving complaints from workers about mistreatment by foreign employers.

Under the eMigrate system foreign employers’ antecedent is checked through its database before giving the go ahead for the recruitment process.

More than five million Indians work in Gulf countries with a majority of them hired as blue-collar workers.

Reports of mistreatment, labor law violations, non-payment of salaries, poor working and living conditions are rampant.