The Labour and Employment Office that was established in Janakpur, the provincial capital of Province 2, three months ago, has been accused of rampant corruption.

Service seekers who have tried to avail of the office’s services have complained that they have to offer bribes to the officials in order to get their work done on time. According to them, office employees and middlemen make deliberate delays under various pretexts, forcing service seekers to cough up additional money.  

The federal government set up the Labour and Employment Office at Janakpur in January so that foreign job aspirants could avail of services in the district itself and would not have to come to the Capital for due legal processes. Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Security has delegated the authority to issue labour permits from the Labour and Employment Office.  

Jamuna Purbe, a resident of Sabaila-2 in Dhanusha district, has been going to the Labour and Employment Office since Sunday for a labour permit. He came home from Dubai for a week to tend to his ill son. He now needs re-entry labour permit to return to Dubai.

According to Purbe, computer operator Saroj Yadav deliberately delayed issuing him the labour permit citing power cuts and an inactive server. Purbe then directly went to Manoj Yadav, acting office chief, and inquired about the delay who in turn urged him to visit the office on Monday.

“When I reached the office on Monday but I was denied service yet again. They asked me to write an application again and again. They cited load shedding and internet disruption behind the service delay,” Purbe told the Post, adding that Manoj and Saroj manhandled him when he tried to probe further.

A fellow service seeker, Upendra Yadav, of Ganeshan Charnath, took a video on his cell phone of the employees misbehaving with Purbe. When the employees saw them being recorded, they seized his phone and threw away the memory card.

When asked about the incident, acting office chief Manoj admitted to thrashing Purbe and deleting the video. “Some employees misbehaved after he (Purbe) verbally abused the employees,” said Manoj. He claimed that the office could not issue a work permit to Purbe because of the mistakes on his ID number.

Labour and Employment Office lies to the south from Murali Chowk. Dozens of middlemen actively lure service seekers to pay them additional money to them to get quick services from the office, according to locals. A middleman can be found charging around Rs 5,000 for prompt service delivery.

“I thought that I would get things done easily after the labour office was established in Janakpur. But I have been spending more money and enduring more pain to get the services,” said Rajendra Mukhiya of Kaidena in Sarlahi district.