Around five lakh migrant workers have returned Bangladesh after they had lost their jobs in wake the Covid pandemic throughout the world in the past 18 months since March 2020.
The information was revealed at a press briefing after a meeting of the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council presided over by prime minister Sheikh Hasina virtually from Ganabhaban.
The meeting approved a proposal from the ministry of expatriates’ welfare and overseas employment to implement ‘the Recovery and Advancement of Informal Sector Employment: Reintegration of Returning Migrants’ at a cost of Tk 427 crore.
Planning minister MA Mannan, who addressed the press briefing, said that each of 200,000 returnee migrant workers would be given Tk 13,500 as grant under the project.
Planning commission member Sharifa Khan said that more such projects would be taken by ministry of expatriates’ welfare and overseas employment in future.
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She said that they assumed returns of five lakh workers after the Wage Earners Welfare Board registered the returns of 4.80 lakh migrant workers at the airport.
The Wage Earners Welfare Board under the ministry of expatriates’ welfare and overseas employment will implement the current project by 2023.
It will identify 23,500 skilled workers from among the 2,00,000 returnee migrant workers and send the skilled workers abroad again for jobs.
The Wage Earners Welfare Board will also help returnee migrant workers to get loans from banks and non-bank financial institutions as part of their rehabilitation under the project.
A database of the returnee workers will also be prepared under the same project to be financed from loans from the World Bank.
The WB has already approved $200 million in loans to provide support to involuntary returnee migrant workers and to low-income urban youth impacted by the current pandemic, said Economic Relations Division officials.
The officials said that around a quarter of the loans would be utilised for implementation of the project under the Wage Earners Welfare Board and the rest for providing microcredit in rural areas by state-owned Palli Karma-Sahayak Foundation.
