Zee Media Bureau
New Delhi: In a major fallout after the Devyani Khobragade case, the Foreign Ministry reportedly pressured the Finance Ministry to bring changes in the status of domestic workers who go to the United States of America with other Indian envoys, sources said.
It is curtains over the Devyani case but not for many other domestic helps who are still staying or go to the US with Indian envoys.
According to an english news channel, Foreign Secretary Sujata Singh met senior Finance Ministry officials on Sunday over this matter, sources said.
Around 14 more maids are still there in US who had went there on A3 visa like Sangeeta Richard, the domestic help of Devyani. The visa subjects them to US laws. All of them have gone under the same informal arrangement with the US state department.
As per the reports, from past several years the ministry of external affairs (MEA) has been pushing the finance ministry to give these servants as a status of a full government-employee.
However, the Finance Ministry feels it will lead to an additional out-flow of funds.
But after Devyani`s case the government seems to have come under immense pressure to put its house in order.
Even some Indian rights groups are now saying that the diplomat row has laid bare the callaous attitude toward domestic workers in the world`s largest democratic country.
Devyani Khobragade, 39, who was India`s deputy consul-general in New York, was arrested in December 2013, on charges of visa fraud and lying to US authorities about what she paid her housekeeper. Khobragade`s arrest and strip-search provoked protests in India and dealt a serious blow to US efforts to strengthen ties.
However, Khobragade returned to Delhi on late Friday following a deal that she will leave the US after being indicted by a federal grand jury.
Since her return she has limited comment on the case, however Devyani at the centre of a bitter row with the United States today said that she is under `immense stress` at leaving behind her young family in New York, and vowed to clear her name.
"I wonder if I will be able to ever reunite with my family, my husband, my little kids. I miss them," Khobragade said.
The row between the two countries, which had embraced each other as strategic partners, saw weeks of feisty exchanges that strained bilateral ties and left resentment on both sides.
India has removed extra security barriers at the US embassy in New Delhi, demanded contract details for domestic staff employed by American diplomats and even stopped the mission importing duty-free food and alcohol.
On Wednesday, it ordered an embassy leisure centre popular with American expatriates in the capital to stop admitting non-diplomatic members, while scheduled visits by US officials to India have been cancelled.
In a fresh retaliatory measure late Friday, India asked the United States to withdraw an embassy official in Delhi.
