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Kerala and Andhra Pradesh have sought the Centre's permission to set up consulates of Gulf countries in Kochi and Hyderabad to cater to the large expatriate population from the southern states in West Asia.
This follows requests from the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Oman, and Bahrain to the Government of India to set up consular offices in a southern city.
But the current rules stipulate that consulates can only be established in metropolitan cities. Chief Minister A K Antony of Kerala and N Chandrababu Naidu of Andhra Pradesh have asked the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government to amend these rules.
According to M M Hassan, Kerala's minister in charge of the department for non-resident Keralites, the state deserves these diplomatic offices. "It is a legitimate demand because more than half the NRIs settled in the Gulf countries are from our state," Hassan told rediff.com
"Often poor people belonging to lower-income groups, who migrate to various Gulf countries in search of a livelihood, are cheated by travel agents and bogus recruitment agencies," he said. "Our motivation in demanding the consular offices is to put an end to such malpractices."
According to the state government, more than 1.6 million Keralites are working in the UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. Though Oman recently approached the Kerala government to open a consulate in Kochi, the latter said it could not give the approval without the Centre's permission.
Hassan said Chief Minister Antony would be going to Delhi soon to submit a proposal to External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha in this regard.
Chief Minister Naidu has already taken up the demand that the proposed Middle Eastern consulates should be opened in Andhra Pradesh. But officials in Kerala said Andhra Pradesh is pressing for them only as "a matter of prestige".
The United States, Britain, Russia, and other Western countries have consular offices in Chennai, but there's none in Hyderabad.
Andhra Pradesh does not have a large number of people working in the Gulf region, but Naidu is eager to open a number of consular offices in Hyderabad to give the city an international touch.
Many global business groups, including Microsoft, have already set up offices in the state capital after Naidu's drive to make it the most happening place in the country.
But as an Andhra Pradesh government official pointed out: "To make Hyderabad a truly international city, we need to attract a few high commission and consular offices."
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