GOVERNMENT TO PROVIDE PERMITS TO WORKERS WHO HAVE RECEIVED ‘CALLING VISAS’ FROM TODAY

The government will issue work permits to those Malaysia-bound Nepali migrant workers who have already received the ‘calling visas’ from Monday. According to the Department of Foreign Employment (DoFE), all labour offices have been directed to issue work permits to such Nepali job aspirants who want to go to Malaysia. Calling visas are confirmations from their employers about the job.

Earlier, DoFE had asked the concerned employment agencies in Nepal to submit the details of migrant workers who had received the calling visas to work in Malaysia. As per statistics collected by the department, there are almost 7,000 Nepali migrant workers who have received calling visas from Malaysian employment agencies.

However, they could not travel to Malaysia after the government stopped issuing work permits to Malaysia-bound Nepali workers in May last year as workers were being charged unnecessary fees for related services by private companies, namely Immigration Security Clearance and One Stop Centre. Following the development, the government launched a crackdown on various such institutions collecting extra fees from migrant workers as it was against government policy.

The process to send workers to Malaysia, which is one of the most attractive destinations for Nepali migrant workers, had been stopped also due to the syndicate of the health check-up institutions. Dilip Kumar Chapagain, director general of DoFE, said that the government is issuing work permits to Nepali migrant workers who have received calling visas from Malaysia as per the spirit of labour agreement that Nepal and Malaysia signed in October last year.

However, it is to note that though it has been five months since Nepal and Malaysia inked labour pact, the outflow of Nepali migrant workers to Malaysia was yet to resume. But Nepali migrant workers are expected to be soon able to travel to Malaysia for employment purposes as the Malaysian government has recently forwarded a new health standard guideline that clarifies the medical requirements for the workers.

Published on: 1 April 2019 | The Himalayan Times