Tuesday 10 / June / 2025
Muscat: Non-Resident Keralites (NoRKs) returning permanently from Oman and other countries to Kerala can now apply for a loan to start a new life.
The loan, titled Re-Turn, is put forward by State Backward Classes Development Corporation in tandem with the NoRKA-Roots, a state agency set up for the welfare of Keralites in the Gulf.
“The loan is applicable to those in the other backward class (OBC) and the minority religion category who are forced to come back to Kerala for one reason or the other, Scheduled Caste /Scheduled Tribe Development Minister A.K. Balan, said.
The maximum loan amount is Rs2 million (around OMR12,000) and applicants must be aged between 18 and 65.
The applicant must have been a non-resident for a minimum of two years continuously.
The loan interest rate would be 7 per cent.
"The application form will be available from the district and sub-district offices of the corporation from November 10,” the minister said.
The state government has set aside Rs50 crore for the scheme.
The minister said that the amount will be increased in the next financial year.
Around 4 million Keralites work abroad and they remit around on average Rs 1.5 lakh crores annually.
In Oman, there are around 700,000 Indians and rough estimates claim that around 70 per cent are from Kerala.
Kerala’s statistics say that their remittances account for 35 per cent of the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) too.
Recently, the Kerala Non-Resident Keralites’ Welfare Board had also formulated a scheme that aims at ensuring the welfare of NoRK returnees as well as garnering the much-needed resources for the infrastructure development of the State.
The proposal submitted by board chairman P.T. Kunji Muhammed to Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan envisages a dividend-pension scheme by way of which each beneficiary will be provided a lifetime monthly pension, which is fixed on the basis of their investment.
The scheme, which is intended to benefit NoRKs and former NoRKs, involved investments ranging from Rs500,000 to Rs5 million being deposited as a whole or as six instalments paid within three years.
Each beneficiary will be entitled to receive pensions ranging from Rs5,000 to Rs50,000 every month, three years after the final deposit has been made to the board.
The pension will be transferred to the beneficiary’s spouse after his/her death.
Besides ensuring that the government has no financial liability in undertaking the scheme, the investments generated could be used to fund various infrastructure projects through the Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board (KIIFB) and other agencies.
Eyeing the money from NRKs to fund state’s development activities, Kerala’s Finance Minister Thomas Issac chalked out the plans in March.
In his Budget speech on 4 March, the minister said that a 1,267 km long hill highway expected to cost Rs3,500 crore and a 630 km long coastal highway expected to cost Rs 6,500 crore will be financed through an NRI chit fund scheme.
“These two highways will be constructed with the support of NRKs. None of them have to contribute a single penny for this purpose, instead, they have to join an NRI chit fund of the state-run Kerala State Financial Enterprise (KSFE),” the minister said in his Budget speech.
The target is to see that 100,000 NRKs join the chit fund in the first year.
“NRKs can make their monthly remittances through any of the payment gateways. The entire money collected would be invested in the NRI bonds of state-owned KIIFB (Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board) in the name of KSFE. There will be a call option available for the KSFE for withdrawing it and this is a novel way to raise funds,” the minister said.
