100 spl flights for migrants
Expatriate workers only having clearance from the Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training will get priority in getting special flights to return to their workplaces in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Oman and Singapore.
In an inter-ministerial meeting on Thursday night, the government decided to operate around 100 special flights in those countries in one week from today so that several thousand migrant workers, who remained stuck in the country due to the weeklong ban on international flights, can go back to their workplaces.
The government on April 11 suspended operation of all international passenger flights to and from Bangladesh for a week from April 14 to contain the spread of Covid-19.
In the inter-ministerial meeting, it was decided that migrant workers, who have visit visa but do not have the BMET clearance, will not get priority in returning to their respective workplaces.
Besides, migrant workers will be given priority to go abroad based on duration of their visa and Iqama (valid work permit), the meeting decided.
The meeting also decided that ground handling charges at the airport for the special flights will remain the same as for normal flights to keep the price of special flight's tickets affordable for expatriate workers.
If any Bangladeshi is stuck in those five countries and if they want to return to the country, they can return by fulfilling certain conditions. Covid-19 negative certificate is a must for them. Besides, they will have to stay in a 14-day mandatory quarantine.
According to the decision, the special flight will be operated only from Dhaka. Those who had bought tickets from Chittagong will be brought to Dhaka on a connecting flight of Biman Bangladesh Airlines.
According to Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (Baira) and Association of Travel Agents of Bangladesh (Atab), about 20,000 to 25,000 aspiring migrant workers were supposed to catch their due flights in a week starting from Wednesday.
Last year, the number of overseas employmentdropped significantly to a little over 2.17 lakh from the previous year's over 7 lakh employment, says data from the BMET.
On the other hand, about 1.44 lakh migrant workers found employment in the first three months this year, Expatriates' Welfare Minister Imran Ahmad told a discussion on April 5.
Remittance sent by migrant workers is considered one of the main pillars of the country's economy.
In 2019-2020 fiscal, migrant workers sent home about $18.2 billion (about Tk 1,54,352 crore) in remittance whereas it stood at about $18.6 billion (Tk 1,57,774 crore) as of March in the ongoing fiscal, showed Bangladesh Bank data.
At present, over one crore Bangladeshi migrant workers live in more than 160 countries.
In another development, the meeting also said passengers from Qatar and Oman can be allowed to enter the country since the number of Covid-19 patients in those two countries was going down.
Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh (CAAB) on April 1 said passengers from the European countries, except for UK, and 12 other countries will not be allowed to enter Bangladesh.
The 12 countries are: Argentina, Bahrain, Brazil, Chile, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Peru, Qatar, South Africa, Turkey and Uruguay.
This ban came into effect from April 3 and will continue till April 18.
US-BANGLA TO OPERATE 21 SPL FLIGHTS
US-Bangla Airlines will operate 21 special flights to Dubai, Muscat, Doha and Singapore for seven days starting from today.
Of the 21 flights, nine will fly to Dubai, seven to Muscat, four to Doha and one to Singapore, the airlines said in a press release yesterday.
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