Although the directive mentions that a digital roster will be created by mapping skills, there is no provision for verifying the skills learned by workers abroad.
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The Nepal Municipal Association has drafted a guideline for the management and operation of the reintegration program, requiring the local government to create a digital profile of workers who have returned from foreign employment, including their skills. The government does not have an actual record of workers who have returned from foreign employment.
The association is preparing a guideline to bring uniformity to all local government programs to utilize the knowledge, skills, technology, experience, and capital of workers who have returned from abroad. The directorate is preparing a digital profile of workers by including the nature of work of each worker who has returned from foreign employment from the local ward, the area in which they want to invest the money they have gained from the knowledge, skills, and experience they have acquired.
‘There is a big challenge in integrating workers who have returned from abroad into the domestic labor market. There is pressure on the local government to create an effective program in this regard. A guideline is being prepared for this,’ said Kalanidhi Devkota, executive director of the association.
The number of people returning to foreign employment is increasing every year due to the lack of productive employment in the domestic labor market and the challenge of starting a business. According to the data of the Department of Foreign Employment, the number of repeat workers is increasing more than new ones in recent years. In the last month alone, 30,480 people have returned to employment. While the number of new labor permits is 20,327. In the last fiscal year, 333,000 people went abroad with labor permits again.
The guideline will map skills and create a digital roster. The guideline mentions that a skill testing program will be implemented for workers who have acquired skills but do not have proof. Currently, there is no system to certify the skills learned by workers abroad. A policy has also been taken to encourage, honor, and reward the private sector and enterprises to provide employment to skilled workers.
A draft guideline has been prepared to provide technical and financial support and tax exemptions if workers or their families operate businesses through collective investment and partnership. ‘Workers will be encouraged to invest in collective investment and partnership,’ the proposed guideline states. ‘If the family of the worker wants to operate a business collectively by investing the income received from foreign employment, initiatives will be taken to provide necessary technical, financial, and other support to such entrepreneurs. Tax, fee and other exemptions will be given to industries operating in such a way.'
Diktel Rupakot Majuwagadhi Municipality, Khotang Mayor Tirthalal Bhattarai said that local production and resource mobilization projects should be attracted. 'A program should be introduced to invest the capital of workers who have returned from abroad in the production of local resources,' he said. 'This will pave the way for marketing by utilizing wasted resources.'
Janakpur Sub-Metropolitan City Mayor Manoj Kumar Shah emphasizes that the federal and local governments should come up with the same policy and program to integrate workers who have returned from foreign employment. 'The federal government should also accept the guidelines prepared by the municipality on behalf of the local government,' he said.
The guidelines have made arrangements to facilitate workers who want to operate businesses by signing agreements with banks, financial institutions and cooperatives to obtain loans at concessional interest rates and to introduce a program to promote the goods and services they produce in the market. ‘It will coordinate and facilitate the necessary coordination with banks, financial institutions and cooperatives to enable workers and their families to obtain concessional loans,’ the directive states.
The federal government’s ‘pilot project’ to re-integrate Nepali workers returning home after completing employment abroad has not been an effective program. No mechanism has been set up to reach the workers who have returned.
Ramesh Khadka of Biratnagar-9, who returned home after working in Malaysia for seven years, said that there was no clear path for what to do after returning. ‘I had learned some skills, but they have no value in Nepal. There is a lack of capital and market knowledge even to open a small business. This is what I am suffering from after returning,’ he said, ‘I feel like I can’t do anything. I am worried that I will lose even the two to four lakh rupees I have.’
