The appreciation of the Indian rupee in recent months has hit hard the non-resident Indians in the Gulf, a former Indian minister said here.

The Indian government should compensate the loss incurred by them while remitting their hard-earned money home, said Indian MP and former cabinet minister Suresh Prabhu.

'The government should work out some incentives for Indians in the Gulf for their remittances which are not repatriated,' he added.

'It is sad that Finance Minister P Chidambaram, in his budget last month, has not even mentioned about the contributions of NRIs, whose remittances have given tremendous boost to the domestic economy,' he told the Gulf Daily News, our sister publication.

'I will take up this issue with parliament's standing committee on external affairs, of which I am a member.'

Prabhu said the NRIs remitted at least $30 billion to India every year. 'Our foreign direct investment is not even half of this amount, and our portfolio investments also do not come near these figures,' he added.

Prabhu was the keynote speaker at a seminar, 'Empowered India 2008', at the Bahrain Society of Engineers auditorium, Juffair.

It was organised by the Bahrain Chapter of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (BCICAI). Indian Ambassador Balkrishna Shetty was the chief guest.

Other speakers were South India Regional Council of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India chairman Rajendra Kumar and PriceWaterHouseCoopers India executive director Sanjiv Chaudhary.

BCICAI chairman Mani Lakshmanamoorthy welcomed the gathering and vice-chairman P S Balasubramanyam proposed a vote of thanks.-TradeArabia News Service