KATHMANDU: The long-awaited Japan International Training Cooperation Organization (JITCO) industrial trainees’ (ITs) selection begins from Saturday with interviews of eight JITCO aspirants for four jobs. “We are going to select four from eight potential aspirants,” said Kashiram Marasini, director at the Department of Foreign Employment (DoFE).

A Nepali outsourcing agency, Siddhartha Buddha Overseas Pvt Ltd, received five demands — two in farming and three in baking sectors — from a Japanese company in January. The outsourcer offered Rs 56,000 for the ITs. However, the outsourcing agency could not get adequate applications fulfilling JITCO requirements though it is believed to be a most lucrative destination.

According to JITCO requirements,

candidates should have at least three years working experience in the

sector and willing to return after completing three years — one-year training and two-year internship.

The process was expedited last year

by the Ministry of Labour and

Transport Management (MoLTM) that short-listed 172 outsourcers.

Nepal has received calls for 40 ITs under JITCO so far. Rainbow Overseas Pvt Ltd and Around the World Services Pvt Ltd had attested the demand for 20 and 15 ITs, respectively, in DoFE earlier this month. MoLTM is planning to send around 500 JITCO trainees in 2010.

Meanwhile, thirty Nepali workers

hired to work as cleaners at King Abdulaziz International Airport in Saudi Arabia

are on strike over unpaid wages and

poor living conditions, Arab News reported on Thursday.

The workers, whose passports have been taken away by their sponsors,

want to return to Nepal after complaining of abuse, the newspaper reported,

adding they have been protesting

since February 8.

For the first two months after they arrived, the workers were made to sleep in the open in a building that already housed 200 workers and then given a small make-shift room, Arab News reported.

After the Nepali embassy in Riyadh intervened in January, a court issued a

notice to their sponsor, who allegedly

tore up the paper and has evaded contact with police who are looking for him,

according to the report.Complaints of worker abuse are common in Saudi

Arabia and other Gulf countries, where a sponsorship system ties all migrant workers to their employers.