New Delhi, Dec 21 (KNN) Israel’s senior delegation will visit India next week to start selection of construction workers at screening centres in Delhi and Chennai, reported TOI. 

A team of “selectors” fr0m Israel visited India last week and another senior delegation will leave for India next week to start the process of recruiting thousands of workers to be brought to the country to fill in the acute shortage faced by its construction industry, a senior executive at the Israel Builders Association said on Wednesday. 

“We will start the process in Delhi and Chennai next week on December 27. At the moment we are looking to bring in 10,000 as per government approvals and this will scale up to 30,000 in the near future depending on how it goes. It is an ongoing exercise and will take months,” Deputy Director General and Spokesperson for the Israel Builders Association (IBA), Shay Pauzner, told PTI. 

“The selection starting next week will last 10-15 days,” Pauzner said. 

A delegation led by Izchak Gurvitz, who heads the IBA's division dealing with workers' issues and the selection team, was in India last week and would be joining CEO Igal Slovik again next week with other members of the IBA team, he said. 

Director General of the Ministry of Construction and Housing Yehuda Morgenstern will also be accompanying the delegation leaving for India next week. 

During a telephonic conversation with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi on Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “discussed advancing the arrival of foreign workers fr0m India to the State of Israel”, the Office of the Prime Minister of Israel said in a statement. 

“We urgently need more workers. In any case, the government is the one who will decide where the missing workers will come fr0m,” Pauzner had told PTI last month. 

The Israeli construction industry employs workers in specific fields where there is a lack of Israeli workers. 

(KNN Bureau)