Enforce minimum fee structure for foreign employment workers: PC

KATHMANDU, June 29: Today's meeting of the International Relations and Labor Committee under the Legislature-Parliament has directed the Ministry of Labor and Employment to carryout necessary homework immediately to implement the decision of sending workers in seven countries including the gulf in minimum charge, saying it was necessary and genuine.

After the meeting, Committee Chair Prabhu Sah said that the Committee asked the Ministry to strictly implement the decision in countries where the MoU was already signed and to implement the decision in other remaining countries after singing the MoU immediately.


The Committee directed the Ministry to implement the decision soon as the decision is now being implemented in seven countries but manpower agencies have been sending Nepali workers in 110 countries.

Stating that the demand of Nepali workers could be low and there was a possibility that other countries could get such demand due to the decision of the government, the Committee asked the government, Foreign affairs Ministry and Ministry of Labor and Employment to make arrangement of maintaining the demands for Nepali workers by coordinating with ambassador of concerned countries.

On the occasion, Minister of State for Labor and Employment, Tek Bahadur Gurung said that some 98 per cent workers, out of the number of workers going for overseas employment from Nepal, go to Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Oman, Kuwait and Malaysia.

He shared that the decision was implemented only in these countries as workers going in these countries are mostly unskilled and semi-skilled and they have to pay high charge as compared to income.

At the meeting, various lawmakers, however, expressed suspicion over effective implementation of the decision, saying although the ministry's decision was positive, necessary homework was not found done in this regard.

Lawmakers Rajan Bhattarai, Pemba Lama and Som Prasad Pandey said that it will be in the interest of the workers if the decision was effectively implemented, saying it was only government's decision, so an agreement should be signed soon with employment provider countries.

Similarly, lawmaker Narayanman Bijukchhe, said that an environment should be created to provide employment to youths in the country by imparting training to them considering the need of human resource in the post-disaster reconstruction of the country.

Lawmakers Radha Timalsina, Puskar Acharya, Chudamani Jangali, among others, said that although the decision was positive, its enforcement was challenging. RSS

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