(By Kiran Bhattarai)
Kathmandu, March 20: The foreign employment agents – who shutdown manpower offices protesting a police crackdown on their fraudulent activities – have now diverted their attention to use the opportunity in hand to push for amending the provision for free visa and tickets to migrant workers.
A team deputed from the Metropolitan Police Crime Division on February 24 carried out raids in at least 18 manpower offices and arrested some proprietors. The manpower companies shutdown their offices on March 6 in protest, but now their context has changed.
The manpower agents shutdown their businesses under the pretext of police crossing over its jurisdiction, but now they have disinterred an old dispute and demanded correcting decisions taken by the then State Minister for Labour and Employment, Tek Bahadur Gurung.
The agents now are demanding a correction of the decision taken on July 5 to provide cost-free visas and tickets to the aspiring migrant workers. In this way the manpower agents have ended up in what seems to be a bargain or 'price haggling' with the Ministry of Labour and Employment.
The manpower companies are now insisting that the provision allowing them to draw 'only' Rs 10,000 from a migrant worker will not be 'profitable', when foreign companies have shied away from providing promotional expenditure.
They are pressing the Ministry to get at least a month's salary from the workers' earning through promotional expenditure.
The manpower companies are also making effort to influence the International Relations and Labour Committee under the Legislature-Parliament to achieve their objectives.
The Committee meeting held today has seemingly sided with the manpower companies by calling for reviewing the provision of providing Rs 10,000 in promotional expenditure when sending a worker abroad.
Lawmakers including Chudamani Jangali expressed support for reviewing the provision. On the occasion, Nepal Association of Foreign Employment Agencies (NAFEA) Chairman, Bimal Dhakal, called for raising the amount received from a migrant worker to Rs 20,000 if not a month's salary.
Meanwhile, some quarter of lawmakers vehemently opposed the proposal. Lawmaker Binod Shrestha said that the government which had stipulated the minimal wage for a labourer at Rs 9,700 could not take a decision on drawing Rs 10,000 from each worker for the manpower company.
Lawmaker Ashok Kumar Mandal questioned what would happen if migrant workers and youths that have been swindled in the country and abroad started protesting like the foreign employment companies that have made the police arrest a matter of false dignity.
He added that how can it be that only such agents have dignity while the youths heading abroad for work do not have any dignity. RSS
Kathmandu, March 20: The foreign employment agents – who shutdown manpower offices protesting a police crackdown on their fraudulent activities – have now diverted their attention to use the opportunity in hand to push for amending the provision for free visa and tickets to migrant workers.
A team deputed from the Metropolitan Police Crime Division on February 24 carried out raids in at least 18 manpower offices and arrested some proprietors. The manpower companies shutdown their offices on March 6 in protest, but now their context has changed.
The manpower agents shutdown their businesses under the pretext of police crossing over its jurisdiction, but now they have disinterred an old dispute and demanded correcting decisions taken by the then State Minister for Labour and Employment, Tek Bahadur Gurung.
The agents now are demanding a correction of the decision taken on July 5 to provide cost-free visas and tickets to the aspiring migrant workers. In this way the manpower agents have ended up in what seems to be a bargain or 'price haggling' with the Ministry of Labour and Employment.
The manpower companies are now insisting that the provision allowing them to draw 'only' Rs 10,000 from a migrant worker will not be 'profitable', when foreign companies have shied away from providing promotional expenditure.
They are pressing the Ministry to get at least a month's salary from the workers' earning through promotional expenditure.
The manpower companies are also making effort to influence the International Relations and Labour Committee under the Legislature-Parliament to achieve their objectives.
The Committee meeting held today has seemingly sided with the manpower companies by calling for reviewing the provision of providing Rs 10,000 in promotional expenditure when sending a worker abroad.
Lawmakers including Chudamani Jangali expressed support for reviewing the provision. On the occasion, Nepal Association of Foreign Employment Agencies (NAFEA) Chairman, Bimal Dhakal, called for raising the amount received from a migrant worker to Rs 20,000 if not a month's salary.
Meanwhile, some quarter of lawmakers vehemently opposed the proposal. Lawmaker Binod Shrestha said that the government which had stipulated the minimal wage for a labourer at Rs 9,700 could not take a decision on drawing Rs 10,000 from each worker for the manpower company.
Lawmaker Ashok Kumar Mandal questioned what would happen if migrant workers and youths that have been swindled in the country and abroad started protesting like the foreign employment companies that have made the police arrest a matter of false dignity.
He added that how can it be that only such agents have dignity while the youths heading abroad for work do not have any dignity. RSS