KHALEEJ TIMES

Indian embassy gets 4,500 passports from ADNRD
 

ABU DHABI — JUN 25:The Indian embassy has collected around 4,500 passports of Indian workers from the Abu Dhabi Naturalisation and Residency Department. The passports were lying there for various reasons such as absconding, lost, sponsors’ complaints, etc.

According to an embassy source, the mission has received 300 applications in Abu Dhabi from illegals seeking amnesty after the plan was announced on June 3. The embassy has set up a centre at its auditorium for the Indians who come for amnesty consultations and regularisation of their status.

Answering a question regarding outpasses, he said: “We will begin issuing outpasses to the amnesty seekers in the first week of July.

“We are constantly trying to obtain the remaining passports lying with the ADNRD because it will make our job easy to identify the Indians living illegally in the country. This will also focus on their status and cause of staying illegally, the source told Khaleej Times.

“After receiving all the abandoned passports from the immigration, we will send their list to all Indian social and cultural centres in the capital to make their work in regularising the procedures easy,” said an official. 

“After spreading the amnesty message among the Indians with the help of registered social centres, voluntary associations and individuals in the capital we have come to the conclusion that people at present are very hesitant, cautious and too much confused regarding the procedures and plans. They think this may lead to a life ban on them,” the embassy official said.

KHALEEJ TIMES

New services for heart patients to be launched

DUBAI — JUN 25: The Dubai Police and Ambulance Services Centre will soon launch new services for heart patients.

Khalifa Hassan bin Dari, Executive Director of Dubai Ambulance Services Centre, said that at the initiative of Lieutenant General Dhahi Khalfan Tamim, Commander-in-chief of the Dubai Police, for the electronic link between the Operation Room of the Dubai Police and heart patients of critical condition, the Health Authority in Dubai is taking measures to implement the system soon after the completion of experiments and selection of suitable programmes.

He confirmed that the Rescue Service Centre officials are conducting experiments on the new service for heart patients.

Under the programme, the heart patients will be provided small size alarm devices, which will help them call the ambulance by pressing a button as officials in the Dubai Operation room will be able to determine the location of the patient using the GIS and send the ambulance to the patient.

The second system includes programming of the mobile phone of the patient, linking it to the operation room of the Dubai Police. On pressing  the button of their mobile phones or calling 999 a message will go to a family member, emergency centre in addition to ambulance car which will  be rushed to the patient’s house.

Dari said that the Ambulance Services Centre in collaboration with the Dubai Police is also preparing a database, including the heart patients with crucial cases so that rescue teams could reach the locations of the patients and have full information about the patient health condition.

The Ambulance Services Centre launched an Intensive Unit mobile cars last year which travel on Dubai roads to provide services to all patients.

The vehicles are well-equipped to transmit information about the heart patient’s blood pressure, diabetes and other data to the hospital.

The rescue officials have mobile phones so they can contact the emergency section of Rashid Hospital.

The officials have recorded all relevant information about the patients who were transported by the ambulance including the medicines used by them.

This helps them determine the medical prescription and provide speedy treatment.

KHALEEJ TIMES

High living cost forces national to quit emirate

 
Dubai - Jun 25: The high cost of living in Dubai has forced a UAE national family to quit the emirate and move to Al Ain.  Jobless Abu Saeed, 38, retired from the armed forces 10 years ago after suffering a leg injury at work. He receives a pension of Dh4,600 – and after repaying bank loans and other debts he is left with just Dh2,300 a month to cover the family’s rent and other expenses.

“Life was better in the past,” said his wife, Umm Saeed, 28. “We used to live in one house with my husband’s family. But as the years went by and the family grew larger, the house was no longer big enough.” They moved to her parents’ home – but when her father died her brothers and sisters decided to sell the property and they had to find a new place to live.

But they could not locate one they could afford as rents had risen in Dubai, Sharjah and Ajman.

Now the couple – who have a nine-year-old son and a daughter of seven – have moved to remote Suwaihan in Al Ain where rents are low.

“We do not know anyone here and we feel lonely,” said the wife. “But circumstances left us with no other option.

“My children, who are conscious of the family’s financial difficulties, are eager to help. They are carrying the stress with us.” Saeed applied for a home from the government in 1997, but after waiting six years was given a plot of land instead. But he could not afford to build on it.

Rashid Al Mutawaa, director of the Mohammed bin Rashid Housing Foundation, said Saeed should file a request for a government home in Al Tawar or Umm Suqeim.

The application would be considered and if a house was allocated, the plot of land would be retrieved.

EMIRATES TODAY

No plan to change date for Salik’s launch: RTA

DUBAI — Jun 25: Rumours were rife yesterday after Zawya Dow Zones reported that the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) was contemplating to postpone the controversial road toll system for the time being.

Senior RTA officials have, however, rubbished the report and confirmed that Salik would be launched on the scheduled date.

Salik, which is expected to generate an yearly income of Dh600 million for the RTA is set to be launched in Dubai on July 1, the RTA officials confirmed.

Engineer Maitha bin Adai, CEO of the RTA’s Roads and Transport Authority, said that the RTA has finalised the installation process of the toll gates at Garhoud Bridge and Shaikh Zayed Road near Mall of the Emirates and it is scheduled to be activated on July 1.

“RTA has installed signboards to guide motorists to the toll gates located at Garhoud Bridge and Shaikh Zayed Road (Al Barsha Gate) near Mall of the Emirates.

There are signboards to guide motorists to the toll areas. More signboards are currently being installed. We are installing signboards near petrol stations so that people know about the sale of Salik cards,” she added.

The official added that there were many alternative roads which could be used by the commuters in order to avoid the Salik gates.

These roads include the Dubai Crossing Road, currently near completion, which will link Sharjah with Abu Dhabi; the expansion on Al Maktoum Bridge; the expansion of Emirates Road from 3 to 6 lanes and the floating bridge, which links the end of Al Ittehad street near City Centre to Al Riyadh Street in Bur Dubai.

The floating bridge is expected to reduce traffic on Al Maktoum Bridge considerably as it can take up to 6,000 vehicles during rush hour,” she added.

Though the RTA officials have called it a move which will reduce pressure on congested Dubai roads, the general voice has been quite against the RTA’s perspective.

The people, however, feel that Salik would bring little change in the present traffic congestion on the roads.

KHALEEJ TIMES

Workers, be careful about contracts

ABU DHABI — Jun 25: Workers should sign their contracts in the UAE as per what they had agreed to with the company in their countries at the time of recruitment, a Ministry of Labour (MoL) official has said.

Ahmed Al Beshr, legal adviser at the Dispute Department at the MoL, told Khaleej Times that as per the labour law, UAE officials cannot intervene if there is an anomaly in this — workers signing contracts in the UAE with different salaries/benefits than what was agreed in their countries of origin.

Speaking to Khaleej Times, Mahadev Prasad, an Indian labourer who has filed a complaint with the MoL to claim his his dues, said: “I work at a tourism-cum-hotel company. I agreed with the agent, who is based in India, to a monthly salary of Dh600.”

“I asked the agent, whom I had paid Indian Rs70,000 (nearly Dh6,000), to give me a contract copy,” he said.

“However, the agent told me that I’ll get it only in Abu Dhabi. However, upon reaching here in the UAE I learnt that my monthly salary was only Dh300 and not Dh600,” added Prasad.

Clarifying on the subject, Al Besher said: “We can only direct the companies to give the workers their dues and benefits according to the contracts signed by the labourers and the companies.”

KHALEEJ TIMES

Five-star hotel staff found hanging

DUBAI — Jun 25: Employees of a leading five star hotel group were shocked yesterday to hear about the death of their colleague, Cambodian national Y.N, who was found hanging at the staff quarters in Ras Al Khor.

A staff member found the woman’s body hanging shortly before 3pm in her room at the hotel’s staff quarters, an official of the hotel said.

A police official confirmed that the deceased, believed to be in her late twenties, was found hanging in her room at Sahari Village yesterday. The police official added that the investigations indicated that she had hung herself.

The woman’s body has been sent to the General Department of Forensic Science and investigations are on. Details of the body’s repatriation will be released after the police investigation is completed, the official said.

The marketing communications manager of the hotel group yesterday told  Khaleej Times that Y.N was working in the kitchen at a hotel property for the past year and her sudden death had been a shock to all the staff.

“She lived with all of us. We are all extremely shocked. It’s sad. I am sure she had a lot of friends,” the marketing communications manager added.

A hotel official said the hotel employees were struggling to understand the incident. “Whether you know her or not, she was a colleague.” After the staff at the hotel were informed of the woman’s death, a donation box for her family was set up immediately.

KHALEEJ TIMES

Mix-up proves costly for amnesty seeker

 
Dubai - Jun 25: An illegal worker who hoped to take advantage of the current amnesty to return home has had to delay his trip because of a mix-up over his air ticket. Majid Ijaz, 30, from Gujarat in India, lost all the money he spent on buying a ticket to fly home.

He approached the Indian Consulate to obtain an outpass – a document he needed to leave the country – and was told to go to the Jumeirah branch of the Dubai Naturalisation and Residency Department (DNRD).

“An official at the centre told me to buy an air ticket,” he said. “I looked for the cheapest flight available and bought an Air Arabia ticket from Sharjah to Ahmedabad, paying Dh775.

“But when I went back to DNRD with the ticket, the official said it was not acceptable. He told me to bring a ticket for a flight from Dubai because the Sharjah ticket was not suitable. They would not let me enter the centre without a Dubai ticket.

“I went back to Air Arabia but they refused to cancel my ticket. They said they could change the journey date if I paid Dh50 extra.

However, travel agents could not cancel the ticket and issue a new one from Dubai.” The price of airfares has risen because the summer hol idays has started. “Other airlines charge Dh1,400 for a single ticket to Ahmedabad,” added Ijaz, who earns Dh50 a day.

“I will have to work more to save money to buy a new ticket. I lost all the money I spent on the Sharjah ticket.” The DNRD official said the mix-up had occurred because Dubai International Airport had been entered in his documents as the point of departure. Which is why when Ijaz returned to DNRD with a ticket for a flight from a different airport to the one shown on the form, he was told he will have to produce a ticket for a fight that departs from Dubai.

To prevent similar cases in future, officials have been told not to specify airport on forms. Applicants who could not change their tickets can now ask the centre to alter their documents to make it possible for them to leave from any of the country’s airports.
 
 
EMIRATES TODAY

Dubai - Woman stabbed

Dubai - Jun 25: A French woman is recovering at a hotel room in Bur Dubai after being stabbed by a man on a bicycle as she made her way home from a night out. The 24-year-old Parisian, who has lived in Dubai for just over a year, needed 15 stitches for the 5cm-deep wound caused by the incident on Bank Street, Bur Dubai, on Saturday night at around 11pm.

Speaking from the hotel room where she is now staying until she can move out of the area, the woman told 7DAYS: “I’m terrified and want to stay in comfort until I can move from Bur Dubai to Jumeirah.” The victim was on her way home, walking past a well-known bank, when she saw an Asian man, who appeared to be in his twenties, riding a bicycle towards her at full speed with a scalpel in his hand.

She said: “If I was in a quiet residential backstreet I’d understand more but it was quite busy, there were people around, and it was well-lit.  I guess he was attempting to cut my bag from my arm but he stabbed my right arm. If I had turned he would have stabbed me in the stomach.”

As she fell to the floor screaming, the knife still in her arm and her bag falling, she said the man turned toward her for a second time but a passer-by heard her screams and came to her rescue.  The woman, who grew up in Paris and lived in New York before moving to Dubai said: “A man saw me screaming on the floor and tried to grab the attacker but he escaped, dropping his cap. He didn’t really seem to go for my bag - which wasn’t glamorous-looking and had nothing valuable inside. This is the first time anything like this has happened to me.”

What has upset the woman the most, she says, is the attitude of witnesses who did nothing to help her: “I was on the floor, bleeding and screaming for people to help me or call the police, but most simply looked at me and walked away. It’s disgusting.” Dubai Police were eventually called and are now invest-igating the incident.

A senior officer dismissed talk of a gang operating in the area, but told 7DAYS: “We have some suspects. In this area there are sometimes small robberies of bags and wallets but these are usually perpetrated by individuals.”

SEVEN DAYS