New Delhi: The ministry of overseas Indian affairs (MOIA) has sought a special budgetary allocation for setting up a welfare fund for training workers for overseas jobs, providing humanitarian aid when they are in trouble at their work places and helping them to resettle on their return.

According to MOIA sources, the ministry has sought an allocation of Rs.2.15 billion ($53.47 million) in the union budget, to be presented in parliament Feb 29, of which a sizeable amount would be kept for the Overseas Workers Welfare Fund (OWWF).

Last year's budgetary allocation for the ministry was Rs.500 million.

"The proposal for the OWWF envisages a one-time budgetary support of Rs.150 crore (Rs.1.5 billion) as corpus contribution for the fund," Overseas Indian Affairs Minister Vayalar Ravi has said in a letter to Finance Minister P. Chidambaram.

"The contribution of overseas workers based in the Gulf and elsewhere, in terms of repatriation of their earnings back home being to the tune of US $26 billion, is well known and much appreciated," Ravi said in the letter.

Pointing out that the government had been providing various facilities and concessions to the exporters for their contribution to the Indian economy, Ravi said: "Precious little has been done for the overseas Indian workers."