Govt cracking down on illegal recruitment agencies for overseas jobs: VK Singh 

Team Udayavani, Jan 9, 2017, 9:32 AM IST

Bengaluru: The Centre is coming down “hard” upon illegal recruitment agencies for overseas jobs, especially for the gulf region, Minister of State for External Affairs V K Singh said here on Sunday.

The Minister said the department will be creating a national repository that can be used by foreign employer or officials for verification of educational qualification of those seeking employment or employed abroad.

“We are coming down hard on illegal recruitment because we still find lot of agents who are not registered; they are able to fool people by showing them…what they will get abroad,” Singh said.

He said, “They take them on all kinds of routes. You will be surprised that lot of these domestic sector workers go on tourist visas…..we are taking action against them.” 

Singh was responding to a question by a delegate from a Gulf country during a session on “Consular services to overseas Indians: Ensuring effective and efficient delivery” at the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas conclave here.

Responding to a question on educational qualification related issues faced by those seeking employment abroad, the minister said they were creating a national repository which can be used by foreign officials or employers to verify the credentials of the employee.

“On the verification of educational qualification….we are finding a permanent solution to this problem by creating a national repository which will have all the qualifications and data base from where anybody in the world can pickup and verify,” he said, adding, “You will have that done very soon.” 

Speaking about the steps being taken by the government to address the grievances, complaints and petitions of the migrant workers, Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his address to the PBD-2017 earlier today said that strict action is being taken against illegal recruitment agents in India.

Prosecution sanctions by CBI or State Police against illegal agents and increase in the amount of Bank Guarantee deposited by the recruiting agents from Rs 20 lakh to Rs 50 lakh were some of the steps in this direction, he said.

On women housemaid issue, Singh said government has taken a very clear decision that no lady or a women worker less than 30 years of age will go outside the country.

“Woman workers whether they have been recruited for any job will only go through the agencies established by the state government, so that no illegal recruitment takes place,” he said.

“With this condition that we have laid down of women workers of less than 30 years will not go out and second as a policy we have said that wherever we find fault we will charge those people for trafficking, that will ensure very strict legal action again such offenders,” he added.