Daijiworld Media Network – Mangaluru (SB)
Mangaluru, May 22: After flights from Qatar, UAE and Oman airlifted people back home to Karnataka under the central government's Vande Bharat Mission, Kuwait Kannadigas, many among whom are facing emergency situations, are still waiting for their turn to fly home. After the third flight was announced from UAE, they are undergoing a sense of frustration at the utter neglect shown towards them by the central and state governments. They feel totally let down.
“We, the office bearers of various Kannada organizations in Kuwait, have been repeatedly requesting the central government to arrange flights from Kuwait to Mangaluru. We fail to understand why the central and state governments have been showing negligent attitude towards Kannadigas residing in Kuwait. We have conducted meetings with union minister D V Sadananda Gowda. He only gave us assurances repeatedly to sort out the issues soon and arrange flights to Kuwait under Vande Bharat Mission. But as per the notification, no flights have been scheduled from Kuwait till June 17 for Karnataka,” explained Raghav Shetty, president, Tuluva forum, Kuwait.
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Speaking to daijiworld, Mohandas Kamath, social worker residing in Kuwait, said, “About 50,000 people from Karnataka are residing in Kuwait. Among them, 35,000 belong to coastal Karnataka. As many as 3,000 Kannadigas including pregnant women, ill and job permit expired and job losers have been waiting to fly back to their homeland. We made several calls and requested foreign ministry of India and MPs of Karnataka to help these people reach home. No one seems to be ready to hear our grievances and show some mercy on us. At the same time, other states have been sending their flights here to pick their people without any hassles. But no one is there to take care of Kannadigas here and we are being neglected by our own people's representatives in Karnataka.”
“The Indian embassy here is fully controlled by Kerala lobby. The state government of Kerala and their MP’s are putting maximum efforts to ferry Keralites to their homeland. But Karnataka government seems to have forgotten about Kannadigas here. It seems Karnataka government is only interested about people stranded in UAE, Doha Qatar and Oman. We feel, we have become strangers for our own government and people,” said Ronald, whose visa expired in March this year.
“I am six months pregnant. My husband lost his job last month. Now we are staying in a friend’s house. It is difficult to continue here without job and money. We have already applied for travel passes in the embassy. But we have not received any notification from the embassy yet. As per doctors’ suggestion, we want to fly to India as soon as possible,” says Renuka from Udupi.
Some days ago, union minister D V Sadananda Gowda had tweeted that the process of bringing back people who are stranded in Kuwait is underway. Soon the flight will be announced under Vande Bharat Mission, he had said.