29 fake job agencies may sour your Gulf dream

HYDERABAD: The ministry of external affairs (MEA) has warned people looking out for jobs in Gulf and other regions to be wary about fake agents and agencies. MEA said 29 illegal agencies were operating in both Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. Maharashtra and Punjab top the list of fake agencies at 86 each with Delhi trailing them closely at 85.
While 15 such agencies are active in Telangana, 14 are operating in AP.Some of them are individuals, while most others are travel agencies, it said. “It is surprising that 25% of the agents have not recruited anyone for jobs abroad. Yet, they are surviving,” Emigrants Welfare Forum president M Bheem Reddy told TOI. He said he got the details from MEA after he filed an RTI query.

Interestingly, hundreds of licensed recruiting agencies registered with MEA claimed that they did not send a single individual for jobs abroad in the last three years. “This only confirms that illegal ways are being adopted to take gullible persons abroad, especially to the Gulf,” a migrants rights activist said.
Workers are taken on visit visas with a promise that they would be given a work permit on their arrival in Gulf. In several instances, however, such workers neither get jobs nor salaries. They also do not get the work permit, thus making their stay illegal. While huge amounts ranging from Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 4 lakh are paid to the agents to take them abroad, workers often end up doing odd jobs and getting far lesser wages.
In 2017, as many as 320 agents had reported ‘nil’ recruitments. The next year, 402 agents had shown they did not recruit anyone. Similarly, 414 agents had shown nil recruitment in 2019. The agencies have to register with the eMigrate system of MEA and follow the norms in recruiting people for jobs abroad.
But, these procedures are given a miss by illegal agents, who operate in their own style. They lure prospective customers, take them to the Gulf and leave them in dire straits.
Just a fortnight ago, seven youngsters from Telangana were taken to Dubai with a promise that they would land jobs for themselves. “We are stranded here without any job,” one of the duped youngster told TOI from Dubai. He said each of them paid the agent Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 3 lakh. “The agent, however, is not responding to our calls,” he rued.
It also becomes difficult for those who had gone there to come back to India. Once they land in the Gulf countries, their passports are taken away by local agent or employer. The illegal agents make them believe that they will get a job visa after taking them there on a visit visa.
Women are forced to work as domestic helps once they land there though they are promised jobs in beauty parlours. Two sisters from Nizamabad, who were stuck in Muscat were rescued recently. MBT leader and social worker Amjed Ullah Khan said Shaheen Begum and Asma Begum were promised a salary of Rs 25,000 and sent to Oman by a travel agency.