The State government has claimed that enhanced irrigation facilities have boosted agriculture and created livelihoods in rural areas, leading to reverse migration. However, workers from Nizambad, Kamareddy, and Jagitial districts continue to get cheated by middlemen. Rajender, a victim who lost Rs 10 lakh to agents, said he had traveled to Jordan on a visiting visa to enter Israel but was refused entry because he was from Telangana State in India. This is a new scam in which visa agents lure gullible people from the district with promises of work in Israel and EU countries, only to fleece them of lakhs of rupees.
Some agents have advertised higher salaries for working in Israel with limited working hours. The modus operandi of the agent was to issue visiting visas for those seeking work in that country by collecting anywhere from Rs 4 lakh to Rs 10 lakh. A company working visa from Israel is priced at a premium of Rs 20 lakh. The agents were getting group visiting visas for them as tourists to visit synagogues and other tourist places in Israel. They are supposed to go to Jordan from Dubai to Israel. However, the Israeli authorities are stopping the people of Nizamabad at the border with Jordan and sending them back.
Once in Israel, the group of people from Nizamabad were asked to stay back by the agents assuring them to get work for them. Those hoping to work in that country left to stay beyond the expiration of their visa time and landed in trouble. The Israel authorities have identified those from Nizamabad who obtained group visiting visas and went missing. They did not return after the expiration of their visa periods. Thus, special surveillance has been mounted with a focused drive against identifying them and either prosecuting them as per the immigration laws of that country or sending them to serve jail sentences. Besides, refusing entry to those traveling on visiting visas from Nizamabad to enter their country.
The agents are running the scam by claiming that wages in Israel are paid based on the hours worked in a day. “We are paid 40 to 50 Shekels (Israeli currency) per hour, and we work for about 10 to 12 hours a day. In conversion rates, a Shekel comes to Rs 23. It allows a worker to earn from Rs 10,000 to Rs 14,000 per day,” said one victim cheated by the agents. This makes the visa for Israel cost anywhere around Rs 20 lakh if work permits are issued from a company in Israel.
Saindla Rajaiah, Pravasimithra Labour Union (PMLU) State general secretary, said that recently, 628 people returned home after being cheated. The agents are not paying at least part of the illegally collected money to those who have returned and demanded action against the scamsters taking people for a raid in the name of providing jobs abroad.
