KATHMANDU:- The Ministry of Labor, Employment and Social Security has initiated the process of signing bilateral labor agreements with seven additional countries for foreign employment.

Addressing a meeting of the Ministry-level Development Problem Solving Committee, Secretary of the Ministry, Dr. Deepak Kafle, informed that preparations are underway to fully automate the labor re-approval process. According to him, a proposal to improve the policy-level system related to labor re-approval has been received by the Ministry and it will be finalized soon.

Secretary Kafle said that legal and technical solutions will be discussed with the concerned authorities within the next one or two days. The ministry has initiated the work of conducting a ‘labor audit’ in 100 different commercial firms, under which the occupational health and safety conditions will be monitored.

The ministry has stated that the necessary procedures have been completed and correspondence has been sent to sign labor agreements with seven additional countries to make foreign employment systematic.

Secretary Kafle informed that preparations are underway to amend five laws. Among them, the suggestions received for amending the ‘Child Labor Prohibition Act’ have been integrated and brought to the final stage, while a drafting committee has been formed to prepare drafts of the other four laws.

Similarly, he said that the procedure to revise all 753 local level employment service centers and develop them as ‘Skills, Employment and Enterprise Promotion Centers’ has reached the final stage.

Under the main program set by the ministry, plans have been put forward to register 50 additional organizations with the Social Security Fund, enroll 10,000 workers, provide skill-based training to 800 people, address 5,000 complaints through the ‘Shramadhan Call Center’, and fully automate labor approval.

Stating that the ministry’s deficit has reached around Rs 1030 million, Secretary Kafle said that it is worrying that Rs 800 million has been found in a single body. He also directed the concerned officials to find out the reason for the remaining deficit of more than Rs 10 million.

The ministry also stated that a proposal to establish a separate national fund for the rescue of Nepalis who have encountered problems during foreign employment but do not have work permits has been submitted to the National Development Problem Resolution Committee.

The process of organizational restructuring of the ministry has begun and instructions have been given to send details for filling vacant posts and appointing office bearers to the board and committee.