Cher Jimenez
Indian neurologist Ravi Subramanya arrived in Traralgon 13 years ago for a job and decided to settle there for good.
With his wife and a son in tow, Mr Subramanya, who had 20 years of specialist practice in India, moved to Australia through an employment visa sponsored by Latrobe Regional Hospital.
He was so smitten by the beautiful scenery and the people’s friendliness that he bought a three-bedroom home after a couple of years renting.
“It’s one prosperous country so the infrastructure’s really good, the rules and laws are easy to follow … I didn’t find it hard to adjust to the lifestyle,” he told The Express.
Recent data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed most migrants who arrived in the country between January 2000 and August 2016 were either buying or owned a home.
The records showed about 292,000 Indian-born migrants arrived in Australia the last 16 years with 234,000 of them on skilled migration visas.
The Federation of Ethnic Communities’ Councils of Australia said the records speak for themselves in terms of permanent migrants’ determination to be part of Australian society.
Mr Subramanya, who worked and lived in the United Arab Emirates before joining LRH, said there was a tendency for Indian nationals to go out of their home country and explore the world for better job opportunities.
“There is a tendency to go out of the country to experience a different lifestyle, a different culture [and] only a small percentage come back,” he said.
He noticed there was now a variety of skilled migrants coming from his home country, compared to when he first arrived in the Latrobe Valley.
“During my time it was just engineers, doctors, and students at Monash but now you find Indians from all walks of life [working] in supermarkets, petrol stations, restaurants, and businessmen,” Mr Subramanya said.
