Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal on Thursday announced to increase the compensation amount being provided by the state to the families of migrant workers who die in labour destinations, from the existing Rs 300,000 to Rs 700,000.

In his address to Parliament on Thursday, the prime minister also pledged to set up seed fund of Rs 500,000 for those migrant workers who have been convicted with murder, but cannot pay blood money.

The remaining amount for blood money, the prime minister said, could be generated through crowd funding.

 Blood money is a money-penalty paid by a murder convict to the victim’s family.

Some Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia, Qatar and United Arab Emirates

allows the family of someone who has been killed to

pardon the murder convict with or without blood

money. Nepal was able to save its two nationals—Ashish Khaling and Dolma Sherpa—by paying blood money.

The government had provided Rs 50,000 in seed money to save Khaling.

Around 27 Nepali workers are awaiting death penalty in different labour-receiving countries, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA).

The MoFA believes that more than half of them could be saved by paying blood money.

Prime Minister Dahal’s announcement comes at a time when the Foreign Employment Promotion Board, a government body that guards the Migrant Workers’ Welfare Fund, is making the final preparation to increase the compensation for the families of deceased migrants by Rs 200,000.

Dahal, who pledged to work for the welfare of estimated 5 million Nepalis working abroad before assuming the prime minister’s role, also announced the long-stalled plan of starting the service of renewing work permit from the embassies in the destination countries.

Nepali migrants working in the Gulf states and Malaysia have been compelled to return home to renew their work permits after every two years.