Kathmandu, September 19

The Foreign Employment Promotion Board (FEPB) is expanding its Migrant Resource Centre (MRC) network to 20 districts within the current fiscal year to help aspirants receive information about overseas job markets at the district level.

At present, there is only one MRC under FEPB, which is located in the Capital. The main task of the centre, established in 2010, is to disseminate information on foreign employment to aspirants and stakeholders associated with the foreign employment sector. After establishment of additional centres, the Kathmandu-based one is being planned to be developed as a central centre.

“We are planning to establish MRCs in 20 districts as part of the plan to decentralise government activities related to foreign employment,” said Raghu Raj Kafle, executive director of FEPB. He added that the aspirants would be able to gather information about labour markets, on safe migration for employment and the cost required to go for the employment, among others.

The move is expected to reduce cases of outbound workers being cheated. In the current fiscal year, to help aspirants choose foreign employment prudently and to reduce the cases of workers being duped, the FEPB

will also maintain informative electronic notice boards in the district administration offices and other places, where more people gather.

Fraudulent cases by agents and manpower agencies for long have been a headache for the government in promoting safe migration. In the last fiscal year 2014-15, the cases filed related to fraud by the manpower agencies went up by 20.86 per cent to 1,906, against 1,577 cases in the previous fiscal year, 2013-14.

As per the Department of Foreign Employment, in the last fiscal year, a total of 2,679 fraud cases — including 733 related to those leaving the country by obtaining ‘individual work permit’ — had been filed seeking compensation amounting to Rs 733.9 million.

In the previous fiscal year, the department had received a total of 2,551 cases demanding compensation of Rs 1.03 billion.