Chandigarh: Punjab NRI Affairs Minister Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal on Thursday said that the state government would provide free legal assistance to around 700 students facing deportation from Canada.
Stating that most of these students belong to Punjab, Dhaliwal said that they would be assisted by lawyers who were experts in immigration laws in Canada. Along with this, Dhaliwal had also written a letter to all MPs of Punjab origin in Canada to solve the issue of these students so that the future of the children could be secured.
Scrutinize documents of travel agents
Presiding over a high-level meeting with civil and police officers associated with the NRI department here, Dhaliwal issued instructions to all deputy commissioners and SSPs to scrutinize the documents of travel agents and immigration agencies and send a report by July 10. He expressed concern that many travel agents were running immigration agencies illegally.
Stating if the system would be transparent and clean, then there would be less scope for human trafficking by illegal travel or immigration agencies, the minister said that a special campaign against fake travel agents or immigration agencies would soon be launched in Punjab.
NRPs also invited to seek redressal at NRI meetings
He held that now NRI meetings would be held for the first time in those villages of Punjab whose immigrants had done good work in their villages or earned a name at the national or international level. Dhaliwal further said that NRI meetings would be held at the district level from July 15 to August 30. He also invited all NRPs (non-resident Punjabis) to bring their problems during NRI meetings so that efforts could be made to solve them.
He said that a total of 609 complaints were received in the first NRI meeting, out of which 522 had been resolved while 87 complaints were pending. Dhaliwal said that there was a plan to bring a new NRI policy by September 30 to resolve all kinds of problems and complaints of NRPs.
