Monday, June 20 2005 20:52 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: The Government today (Jun 20, 2005) said an ordinance is likely to be issued to provide dual citizenship to People of Indian Origin and proposed to issue smart cards to make it hassle free particularly for migrant Indian labour.

"The Government is likely to come out with an ordinance to amend the Citizenship Act for providing dual citizenship to PIOs," Overseas Indian Affairs Minister Jagdish Tytler said at an interactive session with Forum of Financial Writers in New Delhi.

The cabinet has already cleared the proposal to issue an ordinance and the law ministry is vetting it, he said without giving any time frame for the ordinance.

Tytler said the Government is also working on a two-pronged strategy - preventive and curative - to safeguard the interest of Indian women planning to marry or married to Non Resident Indians.

There are about 22 million PIOs across the globe for whom the Ministry is trying to ensure assistance should they require it especially in troubled spots of the world like Iraq.

"We will be introducing an electronic emigration card (smart card) in a months time to protect vulnerable workers from exploitation by unscrupulous agents, employers and emigration staff and eliminate corruption in the system," Tytler said.

He said the chip in the smart card will contain all the information about the worker like where the person is employed, nature of job, contract, salary, etc.

In case they face any problem, all this information will be utilised for the benefit of the worker.