The government of Bahrain this month declared an amnesty programme for undocumented migrant workers to get regularised. This should come as good news for undocumented Bangladeshi workers in the Gulf nation, about 30,000 of whom are expected to avail the programme which runs until December 31 this year.

However, these migrant workers are facing difficulties in obtaining the documents necessary for the regularisation, thanks to delay in passport delivery from Dhaka amid the countrywide shutdown.

The Bangladesh embassy in Manama has submitted a requirement of about 10,000 new copies of passports to authorities concerned in Dhaka several weeks back. But they haven't arrived as of Thursday, the last working day of the week, said an official at the mission.

"Most of these 10,000 passport seekers are waiting to be legalised," the official told The Daily Star by phone.

Once regularised or legalised, the workers will have the option to decide whether to stay in the Gulf country or return to Bangladesh, said sources at the mission in Manama.

The embassy official said a good number of Bangladeshi workers have been thronging the embassy office each day to get their passports. Such is their urgency that they're making this journey in spite of the shutdown in force in Bahrain, the official added.

But the embassy is unable to help them out, he said. Besides getting visa, foreign workers also need to show passport as an identification document.

Asked, Maj Gen Shakil Ahmed, director general of Immigration and Passports department, told The Daily Star they are aware of the situation and therefore have taken measures to send around 6,000 passport books to Bahrain immediately.

"We are trying to send passport books to Bahrain through special measures today," he said on Thursday over the phone, without elaborating details of how this will be carried out.

Earlier, the immigration and passports department sent passport books to Bangladesh missions in Kuwait, Lebanon, South Korea and some other countries through special measures, he added.

Bangladesh's air communication with Bahrain and other countries has remained suspended since mid-March due to coronavirus outbreak.

Bahrain is home to about 150,000 Bangladeshis. About 70 percent of them are low-paid workers in the construction sector. Besides, several thousand Bangladeshis, both male and female, are serving as household workers there, according to the Bangladesh mission in the country.

Sheikh Mohammed Tauhidul Islam, labour welfare counsellor at the Bangladesh Embassy in Manama, recently said response for the amnesty programme is very high as the undocumented workers "Understand staying in irregular way is not pleasant."

Most workers either applied for new passports or renewal of existing ones, he said, adding that the mission's activities regarding the programme will gain pace once the passports from Dhaka arrive..

Unlike other Arab countries, migrant workers' situation in Bahrain is comparatively better, considering the authorities allow foreign workers to live and work without any local sponsorship. In contrast, local sponsorship is mandatory under the controversial "kafala system" to avail job in countries like Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates.

In Bahrain, to avail such work permit without local sponsor, known as "flexi permit", a foreign worker has to get registered with the country's Labour Market Regulatory Authority (LMRA).

Bangladesh mission official Tauhidul said most of the undocumented Bangladeshi workers are likely to be regularised with the LMRA under flexi permit, although they will have to pay a monthly fee for this.

This is mostly because many companies are unable to offer new jobs to foreign workers due to economic fallout amid the coronavirus pandemic, he added.