Thiruvananthapuram, Aug 22 (IANS) Minister for Overseas Indian Affairs Vayalar Ravi Saturday asked rich Indians working abroad to contribute to the diaspora fund so that welfare activities can be undertaken for distressed citizens living outside the country.

"We request the rich and well to do to contribute to this fund so that the missions can add to their corpus and do more welfare activities for the needy. Recently in Russia, two businessmen sponsored the tickets of 10 people from Kerala who had arrived there to work but got cheated," he told reporters here.

Ravi said the central government had set up the annual Rs.16 million India Community Welfare Fund (ICWF) on Thursday. It will operate through India's diplomatic missions in 18 nations, mostly in the Middle East and Africa.

He said the fund will be operated by the concerned heads of missions. The big missions would get Rs 1.5 million annually while smaller missions would get Rs.500,000.

"Initially, we have set this up for three years and this would be basically used to meet contingency expenditure incurred by them for carrying out welfare activities for overseas Indian citizens who are in distress," said Ravi.

Under the fund, Indian missions in seven countries -- Qatar, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain and Malaysia -- would annually be provided Rs.1.5 million each "to meet contingency expenditure incurred by them for carrying out various welfare activities for overseas Indian citizens who are in distress," Soni said.

Missions in 11 other countries -- Libya, Jordan, Yemen, Sudan, Afghanistan, Indonesia, Syria, Lebanon, Thailand, the Maldives and Iraq -- will annually get Rs.500,000 each.