Sushma Swaraj to help Indians workers forced to live on Dubai bus

LUCKNOW: External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj on Monday took note of a TOI story and directed the Indian embassy in Dubai to help workers from Uttar Pradesh forced to live inside a bus there after a placement agency duped them.

"I will ask UP government to register a case against this unscrupulous agent. Our embassy will help in Dubai," she tweeted.

TOI-Lucknow had on Monday carried the story on over a dozen workers from UP, who had invested all their savings for a better future in Dubai. Local travel agents promised them lucrative jobs there and charged Rs 60,000 to Rs 70,000 each for visas. But their agent in Dubai fled, leaving them in a lurch.

One of the stranded workers, Bhuvneshwar Misra, of Deoria had sold his ancestral land and mother's jewelry to get a job visa. But his Dubai dream turned into a nightmare as soon as he landed in the city along with dozen other youth from eastern UP.

The group had to spend a fortnight in a bus on the outskirts of Dubai before some In dian expats gave them accommodation on Sunday .

"We are worried about Bhuvneshwar's well-being," his brother, Amit Kumar Misra, told TOI on phone. "We are in touch with him and want him home safely ."

The eldest of three brothers, Bhuvneshwar was working with a private company in Ludhiana when a local placement agent, Ramesh Prasad, offered him job in Dubai. "We were assured a pay scale of anything between 2,000 to 4,000 dirhams (Rs 36,000 to Rs 72,000) depending on our skills and qualification. But once we reached here, the ground realities were completely different," Bhuvneshwar told TOI over phone.

"Here we worked as construction workers and the living conditions were unbearable," said Dharmendra (25), who is from Kushinagar. A shuttering carpenter, Dharmendra had to take a loan of Rs 70,000 from a local money-lender to meet the visa and travelling expenses.

The group landed in Dubai about two months ago. Barely a month later, their firm Qasr AlAmeer disappeared.

At that time they working at a construction site near the Fujairah-Oman border and were forced to vacate their residential accommodation. "After spending a few days near another construction site in Al Qouz, we shifted to Dubai. There, we were left with no other option but to stay inside a company bus for over a fortnight.We never had a choice as the company had taken away our passports as well," said Shiv Pratap Singh, another worker.