Sharjah: More than 1,000 bogus job offers have been busted this year by the Indian Workers Resource Centre (IWRC) working under the Indian Embassy in Abu Dhabi, officials said on Sunday.

Speaking at the opening of the second IWRC office in Sharjah on Sunday, top Indian officials said the IWRC office in Dubai has been providing the service of verifying genuineness of job offer letters received by Indians.

“Of the 1,078 enquiries received till August 31 this year, only 73 job offers were found genuine,” said Dinesh Kumar, the first secretary (community affairs) at the Embassy.

Anish Chaudhary, manager, IWRC Dubai, said the centre receives around 10 enquiries daily to verify the authenticity of job offers.

“Every day we get emails from people in India saying they have received job offers from the UAE, including even big companies. We try to reply to the queries the same day. We check the website of the UAE government and the websites of the companies offering jobs. We take help from the embassy and consulate also.”

However, he said, majority of the job offers have been found to be bogus.

“It is not just illiterate or less educated people who are duped. A lot of people especially university professors are also getting bogus job offers with salary of Rs200,000 to Rs300,000. Fake job offers in the name of many reputed companies have also been found,” he said.

The Indian Ambassador to the UAE Navdeep Singh Suri, who opened the Sharjah IWRC office, said the Indian government has been trying to promote safe, skilled and legal migration of Indian job seekers.

“We are encouraging migration through registered recruitment agents. In the case of blue-collar workers, it has to be through the eMigrate online system.”

He said there is a campaign in India to spread awareness about this.

In the UAE, IWRC is also conducting awareness campaigns against fake job offers to Indian job seekers.

IWRC services in 2016

No of calls received: 24,049

No of total interactions: 27,529

No of grievance-related interactions: 11,395

No of informative interactions: 16,134

No of email/fax/SMS: 2,321

No of complainants’ visits: 1,465

No of awareness campaigns: 49

No of legal counselling sessions: 1,183

No of personal counselling sessions: 39

No of financial counselling sessions: 35

IWRC services in 2017 (until August 31)

No of calls received: 17,582

No of total interactions: 22,961

No of grievance-related interactions: 10,175

No of informative interactions: 12,786

No of email/fax/SMS: 4,525

No of complainants’ visits: 918

No of awareness campaigns: 34

No of legal counselling sessions: 834

No of personal counselling sessions: 60

No of financial counselling sessions: 95