The single-member commission for labour reforms constituted by the Indian government and led by retired chief secretary of Kerala, CV Anandabose, recommended the creation of a notional or virtual constituencies for NRIs to elect representatives to legislative bodies including assembly and parliament from the country of their domicile.

CV Anandabose told IANS said, "Some of the recommendations submitted to the government have already been implemented. If this recommendation for creating virtual constituencies is executed, it will create six to eight MP's additionally and this is being discussed and debated among the expatriates with enthusiasm."

"This is the recommendation of the commission and to take it forward the government may have to bring in legislation. The point is there are 2.5 crore (25 million) NRIs across the globe and if we consider 30 lakh (3 million) people as one constituency, there will be six to eight constituencies. However, everything depends on the concerned countries, some countries won't allow any agitations or even meetings but there are way out for all these," the retired bureaucrat said.

The commission has also suggested registration, skill mapping, re-skilling and multi-skilling of returning expatriates.

"We also recommended creating a special purpose vehicle (SPV), for expats to encourage them to invest them in new enterprises," said Anandabose.

The recommendations also called upon the central government to facilitate the secure transfer of remittances of migrants through mobile banking and banking correspondents.

The recommendations also said that migrant workers have the right to access to vote through a postal ballot or a similar system and a national constituency may be created to serve NRIs. The suggestion said that the Indian embassies and consulates in foreign countries must conduct elections to offer the migrant workers a chance to vote.

The commission has recommended setting up of a Labour Authority of India as the nodal agency for all issues concerning to the labourers.

Anandabose said " The country has a workforce of 46.5 crore (465 million) people including agriculture labourers and labourers from other sectors. We have taken into consideration the opinions from all these sections of the population before bringing out a report."

(IANS)