Kathmandu, September 2

The country’s recruiting agencies have urged the government to resume the outflow of Nepali migrant workers to Malaysia as soon as possible citing that the calling visas of around 8,984 Nepali job aspirants to Malaysia is set to expire soon.

As per recruiting agencies, the validity of calling visas of a majority of migrant workers who had earlier applied for jobs in Malaysia will start expiring from the third week of September, which will not only put their investment for jobs at risk but will also disqualify them from applying for jobs in Malaysia for the next five years.

“An individual job aspirant for Malaysia injects an average of Rs 22,000 for different procedures to get the calling visa. The validity of a calling visa is for four months and Malaysian recruitment firms will blacklist these workers for five years if they fail to make it to Malaysia within given time,” informed Rohan Gurung, president of Nepal Association of Foreign Employment Agencies, adding government should resume outflow of Nepali workers to Malaysia as soon as possible.

The supply of Nepali workers to Malaysia has been halted since May after the Nepal government cracked down on Immigration Security Clearance and One Stop Centre that had been levying additional charges on Nepali migrant workers. Since then, the government has not been issuing work permits to Nepali migrant workers aspiring to go to Malaysia.

Meanwhile, Prakash Dahal, spokesperson for the Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Security, informed that bilateral discussions to resume the outflow of Nepali job aspirants to Malaysia are underway. The government is preparing to ink a labour pact with Malaysia within September.