India to open 40 consulate sub-offices for NRIs : Chandumajra
Chandigarh: India would open 40 new consulate sub-offices in the countries where NRIs are settled in strength to provide better facilities and access to them. This was announced here today by Anandpur Sahib MP and Shiromani Akali Dal general secretary Prof Prem Singh Chandumajra who has received communication from the ministry of external affairs to this effect. Prof Chandumajra has been taking up the issues concerning the Indians settled abroad in general and the Punjabis in particular. Addressing a news conference here, he said in countries like UA, Canada and Australia, NRIs had to travel long distances to get visa from the consulate offices. They had been demanding the setting up of more sub-offices in their respective countries. He said this step would go a long way in mitigating their problems. Yet another issue on which the Government of India has agreed to give relaxation to the people from Punjab who have settled abroad on political asylum. He said the Government had informed him that they would be allowed to visit India along with their families for two years at a time. Prof Chandumajra had earlier been pressing that they should be treated as cases of economic asylum seekers. He pointed out that a large number of people had sought political asylum in the countries including USA, Canada and Germany despite the fact that they were not active in the politics of militancy. However, once they were granted asylum on political ground, it became impossible for them to visit Punjab. He said he had been pressing the centre to treat such cases leniently. Political asylum was mainly the excuse to settle abroad. Prof Chandumajra, besides writing letters to the external affairs ministries, has been raising this issue consistently in the Lok Sabha to provide relief to these people. He said now those who had settled abroad seeking political asylum would be allowed to visit the country. Replying to questions about turmoil in the Aam Aadmi Party with its convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal facing allegations of corruption from within the party, he said Kejriwal must resign as he had talking of morality and ethics in politics. Moreover, AAP had come up on the slogan of alternate politics on which it had miserably failed, he asserted. — PTC News
