Pravasi Bandhu Welfare Trust: Pay pension to migrants

Hyderabad: The Pravasi Bandhu Welfare Trust, an organisation working with NRIs and migrant workers in Gulf nations, urged the Centre to provide retrenched workers returning to India with an emergency monthly pension for a year.

Referring to the Centre's appeal to 10,000-odd construction workers who lost their jobs due to the economic slowdown in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to return to India, trust chairman K.V. Shamsudheen said not many were willing to go back abroad.

“These workers borrowed money at high interest rates to pay the agents. They are on the road after losing their jobs. The government is asking them to return but they do not have any savings. The government should extend a monthly pension for one year so that they can their loans and settle in new jobs,” he said.