new delhi keen to work abroad but saddled with an emigration clearance required ecr stamp on your passport the government has liberalised passport norms and emigration clearance would be necessary for just 18 of the 191 countries under the united nations earlier clearances were required for 137 countriescountries for which emigration clearance is still required or the negative list include the gulf saudi arabia bahrain united arab emirates kuwait qatar and oman malaysia syria jordan malaysia afghanistan thailand indonesia iraq brunei nigeria sudan and libyaaccording to officials in the ministry of overseas indian affairs moia the reduction in the number of countries that require ecr clearance has increased options for people even while reducing the paperwork the ecr regulation meant long delays and the hassle of dealing with passport authorities besides the ruthless touts and fraudulent recruitment agentfor all this trouble there was no guarantee that the clearance would come in timewe would like to encourage people to migrate since we are unable to provide jobs for them here these workers also contribute to foreign exchange earnings and this move will make the procedure more transparent a source said