New expat quota bill in Kuwait could force out nearly 800,000 Indians

Kuwait may soon ask foreign workers to leave and in the processnearly 800,000 Indians could be forced out.

Kuwait's national assembly committee has approved a draft expat quota bill. Itis not only a major blow to Indians and their families living in Kuwait butalso to their dependents back home. The anti-expat rhetoric in Kuwait has spiked since the beginning of the pandemic.

Government officials have repeatedly called for reduction in the number of foreign workers,so that more jobs are available to the local population.

The first inklings of the bill came to light last month afterPrime minister Sheikh Sabah Al Khalid Al Sabah proposed reducing the number of expats from 70 per cent to 30 per cent, ou of the 4.8 million people living in Kuwait, expats account for 3.3 million.

It has not come as a surprise that the bill's first target were Indians.There are around 1.4 million Indians in Kuwait and that is a huge number withone in two expats living in Kuwait an Indian.

According to the new bill, Indians will not be allowed to exceed 15 per cent of the populationwhich means an immediate exodus of close to 800,000 Indians from manual labourers to doctors, Indians work in all capacities in Kuwait will have to leave the country.

Nearly 28,000 Indians work for the Kuwaiti government. They work in government hospitals, national oil companies and even in universities.

In an extreme step, they could all be replaced by locals. However, most of the Indians are employed in the private sector. There are bout 523,000 workers in this sector. They have about 160,000 dependents living in Kuwait and close to 60,000 Indian kids are studying in 23 Indian schools across the country.

If the new bill is passed - it will have a devastating effect on their livesbut, the low-skilled Indian workers will be the worst hit withKuwait likely to target them intensely in the first phase of its demographic purge.

Assembly speaker Marzouq al-Ghanem said: "The state will focus on skilled migrants rather than labourers." So, the 1.3 million foreigners, who are either illiterate or can merely read and write will be sent back.

Indian labourers in Kuwait send money to their poor families in India.In 2018 aloneIndia received close to $4.8 billionas remittances. As a consequence of this new expat bill poor families in India will suffer.

Their source of income will be gone. During the pandemic, many of these Indian labourers in Kuwait were laid-off andas foreignersthey were not eligible for economic relief, so thousands registered for repatriation to India.

For those still in Kuwait, the future is now even more uncertain.

The problem is Kuwait and other Gulf countries want to put their citizens to work. Gone are the days of lucrative subsidies to locals. The excessive reliance on oil has undone the Gulf economies.

Oil contributes 90 per cent to Kuwait government's revenue whichhas collapsed as the oil prices remain at historic lows.

There is no money left to give as hand-outs to its citizens. They must now work, but the jobs are held by foreigners. So the government is pushing foreigners out in a fight to keep its local population alive.