According to sources in the Indian External Affairs Ministry there was no crisis. Using the grace period over 1.4 million Indian workers in Saudi Arabia regularized their stay in the last six months by renewing their job permits or by transferring their services to new employers or by changing job titles. In total Saudi Arabia has so far regularized the stay of 4 million immigrants.

The Saudi law, Nitaqat, implemented in March 2013, makes it mandatory for government and private sectors to employ a Saudi national for every 10 employees. Immigrants without a “valid work permit” were asked to leave the country or regularise their stay before July 3. This deadline was extended to November 3.

“As per information with us 134,000 Indian workers who stay in Saudi Arabia was not regularized returned to India,” said the Union Minister of Overseas Indian Affairs, Vayalar Ravi while launching the programme for the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (BPD) Convention here on Tuesday.

According to Indian mission in Saudi Arabia in the last phase about 92,000 Indian workers applied registered for grant of emergency certificates, out of which 35,000 were from Uttar Pradesh, 13,000 from Andhra Pradesh, 10,000 from west Bengal, 7,500 from Tamil Nadu and 7,300 from Kerala.