By IANS,
Dubai : Nearly 32,000 Indian workers have registered with Bahrain’s Labour Market Regulatory Authority (LMRA) over the weekend at a labour enrolment festival.
Indians, at 31,734, topped the list of over 60,000 expatriate workers who have registered with the LMRA at the festival, which ends on June 21 at the Bahrain International Exhibition Centre, less than a month ahead of new labour laws coming into effect in that Gulf nation.
“We are happy with the current response to the enrolment festival,” Waheed Al Balushi, LMRA’s e-services and public relations manager, told the Gulf Daily News.
“At the current trend, we hope to complete registration of all expatriates before June 21, when the festival is scheduled to end.”
Indians were followed by Bangladeshis (15,819), Pakistanis (4,850), Filipinos (2,244), Nepalis (1,740) and Sri Lankans (731), while workers from other nationalities totalled 3,388.
Bahrain is home to around 275,000 expatriate Indians.
Under the new laws coming into effect from July 1, the LMRA will become the sole authority over all labour employment procedures in Bahrain.
It will become mandatory for all foreign workers to register with the LMRA, especially for renewal of work visas and travel-related visas.
Earlier this month, the Bahrain government approved a set of new fees for expatriate workers.
Employers will have to pay 200 Bahraini dinars ($530.60) every two years for each work licence issued or renewed. This will cover a no-objection visa, residence permit, return visa and medical check-up for each expatriate.
Apart from this, a monthly BD10 ($26.50) fee will be levied on each expatriate worker.
For each family member of an expatriate worker, a two-year fee of BD90($238.70) will be levied.