I HAVE visited all LMRA registration centres including those in Saar, Hidd, Sitra and even the Indian Club to get registered. I even went to the centre they opened at the Bahrain International Exhibition Centre last week, but all of them were quite disorganised, to say the least.
All centres have only one registration counter to process data of not less than 200-300 people at any given time.
The average processing time per person is around five to 10 minutes, which means only six to 12 people are attended to in an hour.
Given this, it’s not difficult to understand why things went ugly at the Indian Club where 3,000 people showed up in one day.
People literally camped overnight outside the club and Sitra registration centres so they could get a spot in front of the queue.
One expat at the Sitra centre told me that he had been there from the evening before and slept on cardboard outside the centre. He was fortunate to get the 238th number in the queue, but was still waiting for his turn at 10am and hoped to get registered in a couple of hours. This was, not to mention, the 300 other people who were not even given a number.
All registration centres keep their doors closed most of the time and just opened them for a minute or two to let a few people in. There is no way to know when, or if, you can get a token or even if you would be able to register on that day.
This is a nationwide campaign that aims to register half a million people, but the way it’s being run is not up to the mark at all.
The LMRA is regularly urging people through the media that they should get registered, but then it is not able to handle the huge crowds at their registration centres because of lack of preparation.
It should open more counters at all registration centres, have at least one information booth at each centre to help people with their queries, and/or at least a instructions banner in Hindi, Bengali, etc.
It should also have more mobile teams to go around and register people. But most of all, they should get their act together and be better organised to run the registration process smoothly when it restarts next month at the Bahrain International Exhibition Centre.
According to the LMRA website, just over 213,000 people have registered, meaning more then half the expat population is still left.
Even If they started registering 1,000 people per day at each centre, it would take more than two months to register everyone.
The question is whether they think they can register all expats with just three or four centres. Certainly, not!
Mohammed Abdulla
~* An LMRA spokesman said: “We would like to confirm that we have noted all the points that were raised concerning employees’ enrolment (registration) and are working to make it easier and better for everyone. We have had the enrolment open since August 2007 and had enrolment centres like the one in Marina Mall since last January in order to avoid the rush. Yet people kept things to the last moment and rushed to these centres causing problems and discomfort to everyone including themselves.
“We are now running a large scale BIEC enrolment exercise until June 21 (all days, including Fridays) which is more organised and we have introduced new measures in order to avoid the common problems that we had experienced earlier. That is the main reason we have introduced appointment cards.
“If you are an expatriate employee or a spouse of an expatriate employee, you will need to have an appointment card to complete your enrolment.
“People can come to take an appointment card at anytime during the day (not necessarily during early hours). There are 160,000 appointment cards available. We ask people not to crowd the appointments area at the external gates of BIEC, as appointment cards are available all day long. There is no need to queue or come at a specific time for the card. For example, one can go to BIEC at 8pm on June 9 to get an appointment card for the June 11 in the afternoon period.
“Once you have got your appointment card, you need to leave and come back on the day and time of your appointment. Let me use the same example. If your appointment card is for June 11 in the afternoon, it means you have to come for enrolment on June 11 at or before the exact time on the card.
“We will close the hall gates at the times printed on the cards, as we need the time to process those who showed up on time. We have adequate seating inside the air-conditioned hall. Expect anything between one to five hours to get served and enrolled. We aim to process between 7,000 and 8,000 people per day.
“If you do not show up on the mentioned date and time, you can get another appointment card. We have around 30 enrolment counters, four of which are dedicated to ladies and families and a special one for veiled women where they will be attended to by a female member of our staff.
“Any updates or news will be published on our website www.lmra.bh/en/content.php?id=127, and announced through our media partner VoiceFM 104.2.”