Fewer takers than expected for govt's NRI mela

NEW DELHI: With nine days left to the `Pravasi Bharatiya Divas'' jamboree planned for non-resident Indians (NRIs) and persons of Indian origin (PIOs), the government is still counting numbers with only 1,200 participants having registered themselves as participants.
The numbers fall far short of the projected 5,000 participants that the government had said it was expecting, but officials hope a last minute rush will add substantial numbers.Otherwise, they are in trouble.
The highest number of participants are from the US, followed by the UK, with Canada taking third place. A close fourth is the Indian Ocean island of Reunion; South Africa and Surinam tie for fifth place.
The government has already committed Rs 5.5 crores that will be paid to the co-organiser, FICCI, irrespective of the number of participants. In fact, the money being spent will be used only on cost overheads, since individual expenses, including tickets and accommodation, will be picked up by the participants themselves.
Apart from a handful of state guests, everyone pays, and those who are not included on the list of panelists pay an additional $200 as registration fee.
The cost per participant comes to Rs 1 lakh per head merely on the expenses occurred on booking halls, arranging the lunches, dinners, sessions and meetings. Most of the events will take place in the International Trade Fair grounds in Pragati Maidan.
While the organisers are holding frantic meetings from dawn to dusk to finalise the details, bureaucrats in the ministries of home, external affairs and law are also burning the midnight oil in a bid to "take forward" the January 8, 2002 announcement of Prime Minister Vajpayee in which he had said that the government was in favour of dual citizenship.
With even legal opinion divided on the issue of whether this would entail a simple amendment to the existing Citizenship Act or a constitutional amendment, a quick solution is not on the cards. The only possibility, therefore, is to take the declared statement of intent to a statement of commitment, officials point out, adding that the Prime Minister may make an announcement making the implementation of the policy time-bound, leaving it to bureaucrats and jurists to work out the necessary details.