Modi breaks bread with Indian blue collar workers

Riyadh, April 2: In an unprecedented gesture, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday shared a meal with Indian blue collar workers in Saudi Arabia here. Modi sat down for the meal after addressing a gathering of the workers at the L&T residential complex during which he voiced his appreciation for the hard work they have put in for the development of the Gulf kingdom. “Eating together, hearing each other's thoughts & experiences... at L&T Workers' Residential Complex in Saudi Arabia,” the prime minister, who arrived here earlier in the day on a two-day bilateral visit to Saudi Arabia, tweeted along with a picture. Indian engineering and infrastructure major L&T is doing around $2 billion worth of work on one line of the $600-billion Riyadh Metro Project. Of the nearly three million expatriate Indians in Saudi Arabia, a large number of them are blue collar workers involved in the Gulf kingdom's various infrastructure projects. Around $10 billion come in as remittances to India from Saudi Arabia every year. Blue collar workers include masons, carpenters, brick-layers and plumbers among others.