Ambassador of India to Qatar, H E Dr. Deepak Mittal, during a press conference in Doha, yesterday. Pic: ABDUL BASIT/ THE PENINSULA
Doha: Ambassador of India to Qatar, H E Dr. Deepak Mittal, has said that Qatar-India relationship is very strong, diverse, vibrant and multifaceted ranging from trade investment cooperation to energy, agriculture, healthcare, people-to-people contact and those related to cultural and educational sectors.
“We have also seen good exchanges during past few months in specific sectors like trade and investment. India this year remained among major trading partners of Qatar which showed strengthening of bilateral ties, even during difficult times of coronaviurs we maintained our great partnership,” said Dr. Deepak Mittal.
Dr. Mittal was speaking in an interactive session with local media organised by the Embassy of Indian at its premises yesterday.
“An Indian university (a campus of Savitribai Phule Pune University in Qatar) will open in second half of 2021 offering a lot of streams in BSc, Bachelor of Education (BEd), BA and many other degrees,” said Dr. Mittal.
He said that 18 Indian schools are operating in Qatar. “Two more new Indian schools are in the process of getting approval. H E Minister of Education and Higher Education of Qatar and the education authority showed strong support to open more schools to meet the need of largest expatriate community which accounts over 700,000 people,” said Dr. Mittal.
He said that the Embassy provided over 25,000 services from September 2020 till now including passport services, emergency certificates, attestation services, police clearance certificates which are needed for job change and education requirements, visa services and many more.
“To cope with COVID-19, we have put in place online appointment system for consular service with automatic confirmation. A user can go to the appointment system and select date and time which is available and immediately get system generated confirmation. Now no more needed to wait for confirmation for appointment,” said Dr. Mittal.
He said that the Embassy also started emergency appointment service enabling applicants to request for early appointment. “The service is fully operational to deal with emergency cases which people do need,” he added.
He said that the Embassy has started special walk-in-facility for all senior citizens retired government employees from India living in Qatar who needed to have life certificate issued for pension purpose. “A total of 197 life certificates were issued in November. They can walk in without any appointment and will be served,” said Dr. Mittal.
He said that the Embassy is working to undertake a very robust grievance system, an online portal ‘Madad’ through which people can approach the Embassy and get response. “The Embassy also plans to launch a mobile app under its reach out programme as it is easy and accessible for all,” said Dr. Mittal.
