The Hindu Business Line : KATA offers UAE Embassy attestation

THE Kerala Association of Travel Agents (KATA) has set up arrangements to get the qualifying certificates of job aspirants attested by the United Arab Emirates Embassy (UAE) offices in New Delhi and Mumbai.

Announcing this to newspersons here, Mr K.V. Muralidharan, President, and Mr Channankara M.P. Kunju, Secretary, KATA, said the service would be rendered for a fee no more than what was being charged by ROOTS Development Initiative, the field agency of the Department for Non-Resident Keralites (Norka) based here.

Faced with a huge backlog, it invariably took ROOTS two to three months to obtain the UAE Embassy attestations. It was estimated that five lakh certificates were being submitted for attestation every year and delay in servicing of the same had often lead to disqualification of many job aspirants looking for an opportunity in the Gulf destination.

Certain private agencies had been exploiting this situation and were charging up to Rs 6,000 from job seekers who needed attestations on the spot. There had also been complaints of fake attestation and it was in this context that the association had come forward to offer the facility.

The association had made arrangements to get, through a network of its members, the required UAE attestation for those certificates attested by the Union Ministry for Human Resources Development within a period of three weeks or 15 working days.

An embassy fee of Rs 750 and service charge of Rs 550 would be charged per head. This was the same that was being charged by ROOTS.

Emergency services would also be made available, but for a higher fee. More details could be had from telephone Nos: 0471-2325922 and 2478786.

Mr Muralidharan said the association had requested the Chief Minister, Mr A.K. Antony, and the Minister in Charge of Norka, Mr M.M. Hassan, to open more counters of the HRD Ministry for attestation of qualifying certificates.

About five lakh certificates were being submitted for attestation by the embassies of Gulf countries every year at present and the lone counter was hard put to handle the pressure.

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