The agreement on Saturday—to endorse the low-cost provision as a trial for three months—ended an indefinite strike that lasted 18 days.

The two sides had agreed to revise the new rule based on recommendations provided by a field report of an 11-member panel comprising government officials and recruiting agencies.

But the disgruntled agencies claim the agreement has diminished chances to scrap the new rule, saying that it remains silent on Terms of Reference of such panel and authenticity of its report. They said that there are similar ambiguities in other point of the agreement. The government had reportedly agreed to meet most of Nafea’s 31-point demand.

The agencies have demanded resignation of newly

elected Nafea Chairman Bimal Dhakal for failing to work on behalf of the member agencies.

“This agreement is tantamount to surrendering before the government. In fact, there is just an agreement on holding a field visit to the destination countries, but we have no clue about when the panel would submit its report,” said a member of the dissident group, adding that they are planning to impeach Dhakal through no-confidence motion.  

Dhakal earlier this week told the Post that many agencies were in support of the agreement. He had claimed that the two sides had agreed to suspend the pact if the report suggested doing so.

The free-visa-free-ticket provision is expected to end the middlemen culture and exploitations of prospective migrant workers by recruiting agencies. Under the new provision, migrant workers will have to spend not more than Rs18,000 to go to six Gulf countries and Malaysia.

However, the government’s decision to allow the recruiting agencies to charge as per the old regulations for job quotas acquired before July 8 is set to deny free visa and ticket benefit to at least 90,000 aspirant workers.