The government is going to bring every district under the purview of providing essential services to the outbound and returnee migrant workers.
Through this, the workers will get various types of support after going abroad and coming back.
As part of this programme, 22 more districts are likely to get District Employment and Manpower Offices (DEMOs) in July this year.
With new ones, DEMO services will be available in all districts, as 42 districts already have such offices.
The districts where the new offices will be opened are: Gazipur, Narayanganj, Sherpur, Madaripur, Shariatpur, Bagerhat, Magura, Jhalkhathi, Thakurgaon, Kurigram, Lalmonirhat, Nilphamari, Naogaon, Natore, Lakshmipur, Brahmanbaria, Hobiganj, Sunamganj, Pirojpur, Narail, Meherpur, andRajbari.
The services offered by the DEMOs are visa-related document checking of aspirants, compensation services for families of deceased migrant workers, financial assistance for repatriated sick migrant workers, fingerprinting of outbound workers, awareness programme etc.
Apart from this, recently arrangements have been made for pre-departure orientation at 11 DEMOs. This training will start in the rest as well, officials close to the process said.
Initiatives have been taken to launch arbitration services in three DEMOs.
However, migration activists feel that the existing services in 42 DEMOs are still not satisfactory.
They think authorities can upgrade these DEMOs to one-stop service centres so that workers no longer have to come to Dhaka. Because the workers come to the capital from different parts of the country face hassle to get services.
Ovibashi Karmi Unnayan Programme Chairman Shakirul Islam said workers often do not get the services they are supposed to get from DEMOs.
"There is a shortage of manpower," said Shakirul who works with grassroots migrant workers in rural Bangladesh.
In this case DEMOs need to be converted proper service centres with necessary budget allocation. "This can greatly reduce the sufferings of expatriate workers," he mentioned.
When asked, Md Shahidul Alam, director-general of the Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training (BMET), said that they had taken the initiative to gradually facilitate all services for expatriate workers.
As part of this, efforts are being made to improve the quality of services of DEMOs, besides setting up new ones.
"We are trying to decentralise the services so that the workers can easily get services from these DEMOs," he added.
