The decision will prevent thousands of people from going out on overseas jobs. While this will directly impact employment and remittances, it would also dampen Nepal´s credibility as a labor exporting country, manpower agents said. [break]
“Failure to send workers on time could dent our image,” Tilak Ranabhat, president of Nepal Association of Foreign Employment Agencies (NAFEA) told myrepublica.com.
Flow of remittances to Nepal has already decreased in recent times. Worse still, the government move comes at a time when countries like Malaysia have placed huge demands for workers, preferring Nepalis over Bangladeshi and other workers.
Kumud Khanal, co-coordinator of Nepali manpower agencies sending workers to Malaysia, said that it would now be impossible for them to fulfill the demand for workers. Malaysia had recently placed a demand for 100,000 Nepali workers.
“It has forced thousands of Nepali youths to lose overseas job opportunity. It would be unfortunate for us if the employers switch to other countries,” said Khanal.
Till Wednesday, some 5,000 people were collecting passports every day, contributing Rs 25 million to the national revenue. Statistics further show that some 721 people were currently leaving the country for overseas jobs.
Given that the government was aware of Nepal missing deadline of introducing MRP, Ministry of Labor and Transport Management (MoLTM) said the ministry had issued public notice suggesting foreign job seekers to get their passport made before April 1.
“We had also informed manpower agencies about the situation long before,” said Purna Chandra Bhattarai, joint secretary at MoLTM.
But agents said the announcement was meaningless because a large number of people make passports only when they are convinced of getting jobs because of financial reasons. “More than 90 percent of the aspirant overseas workers apply for passport at the last hour,” said Ranabhat.
The government has also announced that it will probably start issuing MRPs within 10 weeks -- the time by which India has pledged to supply them to Nepal. But it has also added that it would not be able to introduce the MRP system throughout the country at once.
“This uncertainty over the issuance of new passports, meanwhile, has left us undecided on whether to accept new demands,” said Ranabhat.
Foreign Employment expert Ganesh Gurung mainly expressed concerns over social impact of the latest situation. “It will pile up unemployment in the country. Absence of job opportunities at home could give rise to numerous social ills,” he said.
Experts said that overseas job aspirants need to get their passports made at least two months earlier. What this means is the impact of Thursday´s decision will be reflected only two months later.
Statistics of Department of Foreign Employment show that 173,239 Nepalis left for overseas jobs during the first eight months of the current fiscal. In the last fiscal, Nepal had sent as much as 217,164 workers for jobs abroad.
prabhakar@myrepublica.com
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