Hyderabad, Oct 23 (IANS) The Andhra Pradesh government is planning to create a fund for the welfare of NRIs from the state.

Under the proposed NRI Fund, help will be provided to the workers in despair, especially those in the Gulf.

Minister for Higher Education and NRI Affairs D. Sridhar Babu Friday said the central and state governments will contribute to the fund. The individuals and associations of Telugu NRIs in different parts of the world will also contribute.

Inaugurating the new building of protector of emigrants here, Babu said the government was also trying to rope in insurance companies to provide insurance coverage to the workers going abroad at least for one year. 'The insurance coverage will be available from the day a worker boards the flight,' he said.

The insurance companies will provide medical insurance, return flight ticket or bring back the dead bodies of the workers, 'if some misfortunes happens', he said.

The move comes in view of the increasing incidents of workers duped by the fake recruiting agents or exploited by the employers in the Gulf committing suicides.

The poor families of such workers are not even in a position to bring back the bodies of their loved ones and the state government has also said that it alone can't do anything.

The minister said since many gullible people from backward areas of the state were being duped by the fake recruiting agents, the state government has launched an awareness campaign in villages using the form of folk arts.

'Using their colloquial sense of understanding we are trying to make them digest the facts. We are telling them the problems they might encounter in going abroad,' he said.

The minister noted that Andhra Pradesh accounts for the second largest semi-skilled and unskilled workforce in the Gulf after Kerala.