THE REMARKS BY AMB SIBI GEORGE AT THE OPEN HOUSE AT THE EMBASSY, FEBRUARY 23, 2022

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Category: Embassy News

Published: Thursday, 24 February 2022 06:04

THE REMARKS BY AMB SIBI GEORGE AT THE OPEN HOUSE AT THE EMBASSY, FEBRUARY 23, 2022

Good Afternoon everybody,

A very warm welcome to you all.

Let me begin today’s open house by thanking His Highness Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmed Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, Amir of the State of Kuwait and His Highness Sheikh Mishaal Al- Ahmed Al Jaber Al Sabah, Crown Prince of the State of Kuwait for hosting the large Indian community in Kuwait.

Greetings of the National Day and Liberation Day of Kuwait to all our Kuwaiti friends. We are currently organizing a special weeklong Namaste Kuwait to join our Kuwaiti friends to celebrate the national day of Kuwait.

Dear Friends,

We hold this open house at a relatively better situation compared to last month when we were worried about Omicron. Now the situation seems to be under control. Kuwait has allowed entry of all travelers, fully vaccinated, partially vaccinated and not vaccinated including children. Hence the concern of most of our people stranded in India are now addressed.

I would like to touch upon a few important issues in today’s open House:

• New Outsourcing centers: Our new three outsourcing centers are working well. I monitor the functioning very closely. Most of the attestation work has also now been shifted to the outsourcing centers. We are keeping the centers open till 8 PM in the night every day including on weekends which make it easy for the community to avail these services without taking leave from their offices and also without hiring taxies to travel to Embassy for services. Similarly, for many services we were able to reduce the fee as well; for example, for photograph services the fee has been reduced from KD 2.750 in the past to 300 fils now, form filling for Visas from KD 3.000 to 100 fils, form filling for passports from KD 1.000 to 100 fils, internet facility for form filling from KD 1.000 to 100 fils. K-NET facilities are fully functional at all three places. We will continue to ensure that the community get best consular services and lower cost. We cannot satisfy everyone, however, I would like to have your feedback, to constantly improve the services.

I urge all to submit passports renewal well in advance. New passports can be applied one year before expiry.

• Medical Services: I want to focus on the medical assistance that the Mission provides. We have a fulltime official who spends considerable times coordinating with various hospitals and some of our dedicated volunteers to help large number of patients. We will have a few slides in the presentation today. So please do not hesitate to reach out to the Mission. We have 24x7 dedicated WhatsApp number for hospital cases. I have visited a few hospitals this month. We also have the panel of over fifty medical doctors who are available for tele-medical consultations. I also alert you on bringing medicines to Kuwait, people are facing problems at airport on arrival. So, lets avoid it for the time being.

• Nurses from India: I am happy to note that recruitment of nurses is continuing. I reiterate that we cannot accept a situation where middlemen make a cut from the salaries offered by Ministry of Health. If the tender documents guarantee a minimum salary it has to be offered to the nurses, otherwise we will not allow such recruitment, which is amounts to exploitation of our nurses. If this is happening now, please bring it to our notice. Use the 24x7 WhatsApp helpline numbers to register such complaints. We will take it up with concerned authorities.

Another issue related to delay in verification of certificates of nurses, we have a response from the authorities in Rajasthan. The nursing council has informed about the importance to follow the procedures including through payment of prescribed fee by the applicants. We will be happy to share more details.

• ICSG Efforts: As you are aware, ICSG has been coordinating many of the support efforts during the Covid 19 pandemic including payment of Rs 1 lakh to the families of low income labourers who passed away due to Covid. ICSG has now offered to send some financial help every month to each of the people who happens to spend more than one month in Embassy shelter. I think this would be a great relief to many. They are also working on other welfare measures which we will inform when finalized.

• Domestic Service Workers: The number of pushing cases have increased with the opening up of airports. We are also facing increased number of maids approaching us for help and shelter. I want to generate awareness among maids and families not to bypass the government channels to travel abroad. Those who come through pushing are most likely to face difficulties once they arrive, and end up in shelter. So, lets avoid it.

• Social Media campaign: Given our credentials as citizens of the largest democracy in the world, which we are all proud of, social media is something we always cherish. But with that comes a big responsibility, a responsibility to respect each other, appreciate each other and understand each other, a responsibility to act as responsible and law-abiding citizens. When we are abroad, we have a bigger responsibility to obey each and every law of our host country and respect the customs and traditions of this land. I would like to convey that under no circumstances we should knowingly or unknowingly, wittingly or unwittingly, violate any of the laws of this country or our homeland, including through use of social media. We need not respond to all social media campaign which is aimed to provoke us. We should do nothing that would directly or indirectly hurt the social, political, religious or any other feelings and sentiments of others.

I stop here today, let me reiterate again that we have institutionalized eleven WhatsApp numbers for public to contact the Embassy team directly 24x7; please send WhatsApp messages or video messages. Now my colleague Dr. Vinod Gaikwad, First Secretary will make a presentation and then I will be happy to get your suggestions and also answer your questions.

Thank you.