Hasnat Abdullah urges Bangladesh to learn from India

Bangladesh can learn from how India and Nepal manage their migrant workers. NCP lawmaker Mr. Hasnat Abdullah said India’s model offers the best lesson. He called on the government to fully reform the harassment prone registration system built on poor software. He also urged officials to free expatriate workers from harassment tied to BMET cards.

Mr. Abdullah made these remarks in a post on his verified Facebook page on Thursday, September 17.

He wrote that BMET card allocation has been stopped for the past week. People cannot get clearance cards. This has led to protest calls. He said cards are still being issued through back channels for higher payments. He added that a bribery competition continues even under the new government.

He questioned why BMET exists in its current form. He said one task remains essential for migrant workers. That task is building a registration based database for all workers.

He said the government needs a database, not a plastic card business. This database should combine NID and passport data. It should show which citizen works in which country under which employer.

He said this data would let the government support workers and their families during illness, job loss, serious accidents, or death. He said accurate registration is also needed for repatriating bodies, evacuating workers during war or regional conflict, and enabling embassy help when wages go unpaid.

Mr. Abdullah called for BMET to shift from a gatekeeper role to a registrar role. He said this would stop the constant harassment of expatriate workers. He said worker registration should move from plastic cards to a database system.

He listed what an accurate database needs. This includes correct passport and NID data, verified education and skills, visa verification, embassy endorsement, and health checks. He said the system should also track insurance data for accidents, illness, and body repatriation, along with wage earner benefits from the Ministry of Expatriate Welfare.

He said BMET cards were originally meant to make pre departure training and authentic job and visa documents mandatory. He said the card system has instead made bribery mandatory. He said health checks already happen through trusted embassy partners abroad, so online API verification should be simple in these cases.

He said BMET in Bangladesh cannot verify visa validity, skill certificates, exam certificates, or medical certificates through a real time database. He said this gap has allowed fake documents to spread widely.

He pointed to India and Nepal as examples worth following. He said India’s model offers the clearest lesson, and the key difference lies not in fees but in the scope of service. In India, clearance is required only for workers whose passports carry an ECR stamp, meaning those who have not passed tenth grade.

He said anyone who passes secondary school falls under the ECNR category and needs no clearance at all. Even when clearance applies, it covers only 18 specific countries. He said the entire process runs online in India, costs 200 rupees, and gets approved by the Protector of Emigrants on the same day, with no harassment.

He repeated his demand for the government to fully reform the harassment prone registration system built on poor software, and to free expatriate workers from the harassment linked to BMET cards.