The Ministry of Labor and Transport Management (MoLTM) Sunday finalized the guidelines for Nepalese industrial trainees under Industrial Training Program (ITP) or Technical Internship Program (TIP).
As per the guidelines, the sending agencies can collect Rs 50,000 as promotional fee that includes health check, pre-departure training, language and culture training, insurance premium, monitoring of workers and market management cost for job opportunities in Japan. Sending institutions will have to maintain transparency on income and expenditure incurred while sending workers to Japan. Workers, however, will have to contribute to the Foreign Employment Welfare Fund on their own. There is a stringent provision of punishing both the sending agencies and the workers if they are found to be collecting more than the prescribed amount as fee.
The sending agencies will have to appoint their agents in Japan subject to permission of MoLTM. The Ministry, however, can determine the number of agents on the basis of workers and the places where they are employed. According to the guidelines, the agents will have to facilitate workers, deal with problems that they might face in Japan, inform Nepali Embassy if workers violate job contract and promote Nepal as a source country for Japanese job market.
Only the workers who can speak and understand Japanese language, have information about Japanese culture and have undergone through pre-departure training are qualified to go to Japan.
According to officials, a high-level committee led by Labor Minister will be formed to monitor the sending process. The guidelines have also made it mandatory for receiving Japanese enterprises to submit periodical report about the condition of Nepali workers to Nepali Embassy and also inform the Nepali mission about commission and other facilities provided to sending agencies. The Nepali embassy will have to play the role of a facilitator to forge proper coordination among Japanese enterprises and certify the demands placed by them.
Similarly, the government can call back the workers if they are found to have submitted fake documents and slap them a fine equivalent to the expenses incurred while sending the workers to Japan. The workers will have to make written commitment before the government that they would return back after completing their internship period in Japanese firms. Those overstaying in Japan will be punished as per the Foreign Employment Act.
According to the guidelines, Nepali enterprises recommending their workers to Japan would be slapped a fine equivalent to total expenses incurred in the sending process, if they failed to reemploy workers after internship in Japan.
Workers between the age of 18 and 40 having two years of work experience in industrial enterprises, factories, agriculture firms, cooperatives, community-based institutions, hotels and tourism enterprises, among others, are qualified to work as industrial trainees in Japan.
The government has designated a total of 172 agencies to send workers to Japan under the JITCO program. They have been authorized to send workers to Japan under JITCO for a period of one year, subject to renewal within 30 days of the expiry period. JITCO has already signed such agreement with 15 countries.
prabhakar@myrepublica.com
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