KATHMANDU: The Ministry of Youth, Labour and Employment has announced two major reform initiatives aimed at ending irregularities in the foreign employment sector and ensuring hassle-free services for workers.

Labour Minister Ramjee Yadav launched the “Operation Illegal Agent Clean-Up” and a local-level labour permit facilitation program during a virtual interaction with employment coordinators and migrant resource center counselors across all 753 local levels.

Minister Yadav emphasized that since the law does not recognize agents, this campaign was effectively launched to track down and take action against those operating illegally under the radar.

To support this crackdown, the government has developed an online website and a mobile app to collect data on individuals or groups exploiting workers, viewing it as a data-driven governance move to address issues dating back to 1999.

Concurrently, the ministry is expanding labour permit services across all 753 local levels via the FEIMS system, with user IDs already generated for 390 municipalities.

This initiative, backed by a newly passed procedure transforming employment centers into skill and entrepreneurship hubs, aims to protect digitally illiterate citizens from middlemen and cyber scams, aligning with the government’s plan to observe the next ten years as the “National Employment Promotion Decade.”