CHANDIGARH: The Punjab Government would set up a 24-hour toll free call centre to redress problems and grievances of the Punjab origin NRIs. The call centre, a bilingual facility in Punjabi and English, comes as a follow-up to the decisions taken during the NRI Sammelan held in Chandigarh and Jalandhar in January this year.

Disclosing this, Harcharan Bains, media advisor to the Punjab Chief Minister, said that in addition to the Call Centre, the NRI-specific official website of the State Government would also function as a logistic back-up for increased facilitation of the Government-to-NRI interaction.

About 70 lakh NRIs of Punjabi Origin are settled in different parts of the world, with Canada UK, USA, Malaysia and some countries in the middle-east being the favoured destinations. Meanwhile, the Punjab Government signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs in the Government of India for putting in place a structured mechanism for the welfare of Punjabis going to or already settled in different countries across the world.

The MoU was signed in the presence of the Chief Minister with Chief Secretary Ramesh Inder Singh and K Mohan Das, secretary, ministry of Overseas India Affairs representing the state and the Union governments, respectively.

The major thrust of the MoU is at creating awareness in the Punjabis about the migration and employment related issues. One of its key clauses concerns imparting vocational skills to aspiring emigrants. Short duration skill training courses will be organized keeping in mind the country specific demand for skilled workforce from Punjab.

It also seeks a joint initiative for setting up help centers for solving immigration related problems at various airports and for providing emergency documentation in case of loss of passports abroad, said Bains.