The latest service to be moved
away from typing centres is residence visa applications — from November 1.
This might sound the death
knell of 600-odd typing centres in Dubai.
In May this year, the General
Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs (GDRFA) launched the first of
its 50 proposed Aamer Business Centres that would operate as one-stop shops for
all residency-related services, helping people apply for and process their
visas, without having to either visit the typing centres or the GDRFA offices.
From November 1
The GDRFA has also announced
that from November 1, the typing centres will no longer be able to process visa
applications, which has been their main area of service for several
decades.Already stripped of their role as the main facilitators of government
services like applying for labour permits, Emirates ID card and medical fitness
tests, the smaller typing centres are now surviving on odd jobs.
Ilyas Ahmad has been in the
typing business for 17 years and like many of his competitors, he works out of
a small 50-square-foot office in Hor Al Anz East, which was once a major hub
for typing services.
Clueless
Once thriving due to their
proximity to the city’s Old Labour Office, the 50-odd typing centres in Hor Al
Anz, including the one owned by Ahmad, are now clueless about their future.
“Slowly, everything is being
taken away from us and we are left with no choice. Right now, I am only
processing family visa applications because we are not allowed to do the
employment visa applications or the Emirates ID and medical fitness
applications,” said Ahmad.
The 45-year-old Indian expat
once had five typists working for him, but due to thinning demand for their
work, he was forced to lay off all his staff one by one.
“Now, I am somehow managing by
accepting applications from my regular customers who continue to approach me,
which I then take to the bigger centres and get them processed for a small
commission," said Ahmad.
"I don’t know how long I
will survive like this. I haven’t decided on what to do next. I just hope there
will still be something for the likes of me in the system.”
Changing jobs
Egyptian expat, Mohammad, who
only gave his first name, has been running his small typing business for the
last two decades, but he is also now surviving doing a mandoob’s (PRO) job.
“I have been in this business
since the time of manual applications when there were no computers and we had
to type out every application on paper," said Mohammad.
"We have been part of the
system playing a key role and providing an important service for so long and
now we feel we are being pushed out to accommodate bigger businesses,” added
Mohammad, who is now considering a change in profession.
In Hor Al Anz East, typing
businesses continued to flourish even after the labour office moved to a new
location and the application services were taken away from the typing centres
and handed over to Tas-heel.
They continued to survive even
after the Emirates ID and, more recently, medical fitness test applications
were also moved away to bigger centres. However, taking the visa application
services away, they feel, is the final proverbial nail in their coffin.
Cubicle centres not allowed
According to one of the
government requirements, to be eligible to process Emirates ID and medical
fitness applications, the typing centres need to be bigger than 1,500 square
feet in size — which means only a handful qualify.
In Hor Al Anz East, there are
only two such centres currently processing Emirates ID and medical fitness
applications. The owner of one of these centres is also not sure until when he
could do this.
“You never know what will
happen next, things keep changing here very frequently. Right now, we are
processing Emirates ID, medical as well as visa applications," said Abdul
Kareem, who opened a bigger office only last year to be eligible to process medical
and Emirates ID applications.
"From November 1, we
won’t be able to process the visa applications, which will mean losing out on a major source of revenue,” said
Abdul Kareem.
Operating with more typists,
Kareem is now wondering whether he will be able to generate enough revenue to
maintain his sprawling centre without the service fees accrued through visa
applications.
While Kareem and some of the
bigger centres might survive for some time
more, many others from his tribe of typists will soon be out of work.
