A few months ago, while checking in for a flight to Dubai, I was told by the counter girl that she would not check me in. The reason was that my passport did not have a ECNR stamp (supposed to be given to any genuine 12th standard student or graduate from an Indian university).
The matter escalated to the immigration manager who hemmed, hawed, expressed much disappointment in educated people not being aware of the law and after much haranguing, gave me a temporary clearance. This, after I, brandished copies of my IT returns (I was forewarned about the hurdle at immigration since the ticket was bought just a day before), pointed out that I was not likely to work as a driver with a sheikh or a menial worker whose passport might get confiscated and my work was only for two days (do see my tickets). So, he or the Government of India did not have to worry about `protecting’ me from being sold for cheap in the middle eastern job market.
It was half an hour to go and the aircraft doors were about to close. I was now mentally ready to stay back in my dear country which cared so much for my welfare outside that I was tempted to ask if my job would ever be protected inside. Even the last, last boarding calls had stopped. But lo and behold, the immigration officer himself walked back with me to the check-in counter to request the airline people to allow me in. So, after putting me through 45 minutes of agony, he did his kind deed for the morning.
Look Ma, No ECNR
For various reasons, this writer has the distinction of not having a ECNR (Emigration Check Not Required) clearance on his passport. This is despite several legitimate attempts to get it knocked off. They include the travel agent producing my graduation mark sheet, my three years of income tax returns only to be told only the graduation certificate and the original copies of the returns would do.
What, I asked my travel agent, about my PAN card ? There is a number there with a photograph, which clearly shows I am registered and filing taxes. Why can’t the passport officer or the protectorate or emigrants hook up with the Income Tax database and verify for himself ?
“Sorry sir, they can’t do it, you have to go yourself and explain or get the originals.” How in the lord’s name is one expected to produce certificates from crumbling universities (Bombay) or stand in line at the passport office starting 8 am with originals of my IT filings. Sure I can do it, but why should I ? Why does the government collect taxes from me, put me through hell while paying them and not have the common sense to share that information with its own bretheren ?
Temporary Suspension..
There is an option. You can get your ECNR temporarily `suspended’ by going to a small building in one corner of north Bombay housing the relevant arm of the Ministry of Labour. There, on showing your passport and return air ticket, you are given a one-month relief on the ECNR. That means you can travel to all the aforementioned countries, though there is no real proof otherwise that you would return, ever.
Four days before I was leaving for China last month, my alert travel agent was on the line. “Have you got your ECNR done ?” she asked. No, I said, wanting to add I was now thinking of suing the Ministry of Labour for even thinking it could protect me when its Ministry of Surface Transport (presumably a sister concern) has broken my vertebral column with its terrible roads. Sure, some roads are state subjects but so what.
“You need to have one,” she said or you can’t go there. I then remembered the travel agent getting it done for my previous visits as well, so back went my passport. I was spared personal agony (though another page on my passport is gone) as the travel agent got it done but this surely took the cake. How can the Government of India ask Indians to have an ECNR for China, a country where its own residents can’t move freely from one place to another ?
Labour Belaboured
The point is that labour markets have changed in the last few years. The middle east continues to be tricky in more ways than one. But not south east Asia and surely not China. For one, China is not a place you can be smuggled in to work in a sweat shop (I would surely like to know if you can be). For one, there are enough Chinese to work in sweat shops.
More simply, in China or South Korea (exempted after an exhaustive review), as an Indian, you will stand out from a mile. No one may look at you oddly but that does not mean you have blended with the dormitories of Shenzhen or wherever. And finally, do trust the Chinese government to do a better job of managing migratory flows (of its own and outsiders) than your own Ministry of Labour.
And this is when the Al Qaeeda is picking up Indian truck drivers and using them for target practice when it wants to. Believe me, if more Indians are not getting kidnapped in Iraq or Afghanistan or being targeted in Saudi Arabia, its because they really don’t have the same `market-value’ as unfortunately, some westerners do. As a friend working in a middle eastern oil company and who travels regularly to Riyadh told me, “As an Indian, you have nothing to fear, but as a westerner, its tough. You have to constantly live under tight security.”
The Emigration Act, 1983
I digress. As always, there is a law which in some meritorious way, makes sense. The Emigration Act, 1983 provides a framework that hopes to regulate emigration of Indian workers overseas, particularly those on contractual basis and seeks to safeguard their interests and ensure their welfare. These words are the Government’s not mine.
Some of them unfortunately do need safeguarding, but that’s because this country for all its great IT and manufacturing resurgence story does not offer them better opportunities. I don’t see why a normal person with a family would want to become a truck driver in Iraq. I always thought the attraction for those kind of jobs in that part of the world was high in the eighties and early nineties and started waning since. I was totally wrong and the figures are if anything startling. Anyway that’s a larger issue.
In practice, the law its an utter disaster. And I return to my original point. Forget the destination country, I can be stopped at immigration and sent back if this I am not able to prove something the government makes my life miserable in trying to prove. And no, my PAN card won’t do, because it belongs to another department.
Nor will my credit cards because quite possibly, the poor and uknowing banks who issue them usually do so to jobless workers wanting to flee to the United Arab Emirates. And nor will the government put a man at the airport to do the stamping for passengers who have the proof in their hands (permanently and non temporarily) but not the time to visit them personally.
Managing 1.3 Billion People
I am tempted to say this is another thing we should learn from the Chinese, how to manage people flows. No, its not about (as some would like to believe) strip searching and flogging people people who desert their posts or show up in the wrong county. Its about having a nationwide citizen database that works, is inter-connected and knows exactly who deserves to go where and why.
And guess what, the system does not make them sweat in long lines to prove who they are. I know, I asked a local Chinese citizen in Beijing. Even a lost citizen's card is replaced reasonably quickly in your local government office.
This is a nation of 1.3 billion people so it must not be easy. But the determination to make something work, as always, is strong. Our Ministry of Labour and its parent the Government of India should take some lessons here and not make me run around the passport office in circles.
http://moia.gov.in/showsublink.asp?
http://www.airportsindia.org.in/aai/immigration/ecnr-f.htm
Tax clearance was another hurdle which has since been removed. It was another tool for extracting bribes from innocent travellers.
Anyway, I also discovered there is no benefit to being :-
a) a journalist
b) a journalist who has friends whose dads are senior IFS officers
c) son of a senior journalist
*sigh*
Anyway, I ended up spending the greater part of one day at the RPO in Delhi's Bhikaiji Cama Place where the 1987 era machines (this was 2002) kept on crashing. But after five or six hours - stamp - and I finally had it done.
Lesson - Big deal if you pay a quarter of your salary in taxes, and big deal if yo' daddy's an MP, you still have to stand in line. In a weird sort of way, it is a great equaliser.
But that said, why the hell do we issue passports with ECR still?
Later in Bangalore, he had to waste one whole day, stand in queue and pay some 300INR to get it done.
K, why would having friends who have father in IFS should make you any different ? (If it was satire then I am sorry for raising this question)
I have a strange problem, Would welcome responses/experiences/thoughts... I was travelling to Swaziland (!!) via South Africa and I did not have ECNR on my passport. When I was checking in - I was told that ECR was required for Swaziland, but they let me go and did not do a through and through check - they only reserved me till Johannesburg.
At immigration they stamped the passport also. They guy at the check in (duty manager) told me that there maybe a problem when I come back to India - but that I should say that I did never had a ticket to Swaziland, and I had to go there urgently, so I bought a ticket and then there should not be a problem.
I am now In Swaziland, and I don't know what they will do - when I get back... any ideas, help, support in the trying times!! Please!
I have a strange problem, Would welcome responses/experiences/thoughts... I was travelling to Swaziland (!!) via South Africa and I did not have ECNR on my passport. When I was checking in - I was told that ECR was required for Swaziland, but they let me go and did not do a through and through check - they only reserved me till Johannesburg.
At immigration they stamped the passport also. They guy at the check in (duty manager) told me that there maybe a problem when I come back to India - but that I should say that I did never had a ticket to Swaziland, and I had to go there urgently, so I bought a ticket and then there should not be a problem.
I am now In Swaziland, and I don't know what they will do - when I get back... any ideas, help, support in the trying times!! Please!
ECNR is meant to stop you from leaving the country..for reasons mentioned in this and previous articles..not prevent you from entering..
As far as I can see, as a citizen of India, you cannot and will not be stopped from entering..regardless of whether there was a problem with your ECNR.
So don't worry. Needless to add, its one of the most ridiculous laws any country can have and achieves precious little but to harass people like you and me. And I still don't have one !
I am seriously contemplating a PIL against the Govt of India, naming the MoF and the MoH for penalising me because they don't synchronise their records. I have a PAN card, pay all my taxes, so the Govt knows I exist and what kind of money I make.
Yet, they will not give me a stamp that is supposed to protect me from becoming indentured labour !!!!
GE
GE
Thanks for that... I will let you know when I get back !
I too think this law is devoid of sense and feeling . The Home Affairs website says that this law is for the PoE (Protection of Emigrants), my god ! The way I see it is why protect someone who has genuine reason to immigrate. What kind of protection? and why harass people who are tax payers.
I think ECR is a way of our government proclaiming to the world that they dont have a system by which things are integrated in our country - they don't know who is a genuine tax payer and who is not.
A PIL is a very good idea, I almost came back from the airport (in Mumbai - I live in Delhi ) when they told me this. It is sad and amusing at the same time.
I am in Swaziland for an audit (I am an IT auditor) !!
Thanks again !
My dad was to come last night to Thailand where I stay with my Mom, since my Dads passport was issued long time back with ECR (first time he was travelling outside) he was not allowed to fly out of India for bullshit ECR reasons. Moms passport was recent one, where they have removed the ECR thing. It has spoiled my plans and I have lost big money on the tickets for my parents. Above all , they travelled more than 50 kms to reach Mumbai airport with luggage and had to return back at 2 AM in the night with all the luggage.
This is really some bullshit law, my dad is well above 55 yrs and he should not have been stopped from flying out when he has 15 days Visa (tourist). The immigration officers didnt listen to him, I was not there to do anything..
Some bullshit useless law is forbiding lots of people to not to travel outside the country..
Really sorry to hear about your dad..yes, its a totally useless law and worse, a tool for harassment..I am still in the non-ECNR category by the way.
The fact is that they could have allowed your dad to go through..the emigration authorities have the discretion to do so..at best the officer/police inspector at the airport would have stamped the passport. I have seen it being done and have got it done for myself as well.
It is unfair and ridiculous. Will have to take this protest to another level. Meanwhile, I hope your parents make it soon.
Govindraj
For the reset of you. All you need is a Visa and a Return ticket and you wil be given a temporary ECNR status from the emigration office. Or catch a local agent. He should be able to do the same.
My issue is resolved and this fyi please. Any Indian citizen carrying valid degree certificate(original) is exempt from Emigration Check; this is the rule as it stands now. so we are releived.
thanks
Ravi
today i realized that i dont have ECNR stamp on my passport and i went to get that stamped ,i have to travel day after tomorrow to Thailand . People at the passport office said that they will deliver my passport by post which can take 8 days . No w is there any solution? or shall i be prepared for the stamp at the airport?????
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