Job-seekers\\\' listing at PKB halted due to huge rush

The authorities concerned suspended enrolment of overseas job-seekers at Probashi Kalyan Bhaban (PKB) at Eskaton Garden in the capital for a temporary period on Thursday, after they found it difficult to cope with growing rush of fortune-seekers there.
"We have temporally put our registration process on hold to avoid such a big rush of the job-seekers," a ministry official told the FE.
The registration programme at PKB will be opened within the shortest possible time with a notice.
But job-seekers will be able to enlist names at their respective district manpower offices and union information service centres, he also said.
Except the registration, all other regular migration-related works will continue at PKB, he mentioned.   
The authorities struggled hard to handle the rush of overseas job-seekers on Thursday, as a rumour was running high among them that the registration process would end on the day.
Officers and employees at PKB came to the street with their services to deal with hundreds of job-seekers, who waited in long queues from the early hours of the day to register their names in a job data-bank.
The queues were extended from PKB to Mogbazar, PKB to Ladies Club on Eskaton Garden Road, and PKB to Paribag foot-over bridge that forced the traffic officials to suspend vehicular movements in the area.
The ministry concerned deployed nine voluntary teams there to help the job-seekers and manage the crowed.
Despite the ministry move, the crowed was not well managed. Taking the advantage of extraordinary crowd a section of people sold photocopy of registration form, which is free of cost, and also filled up those taking Tk 20 to 200 from each of the job-seekers, some alleged.
 "I bought the form at Tk 100, as I couldn't manage it from the office," said Jahangir Alam, another job-seeker.  
"I must submit my registration form anyhow today, as I heard that today is the last day of submission," Jahirul Islam, who came from Gazipur, told the FE correspondent on the day.
Such confusion gripped the job-seekers when the Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training (BMET) launched a registration programme for workers, interested to go to Saudi Arabia and other countries, at the Digital World Fair 2015.
"There was no deadline of the registration. But a rumour spread among the job-seekers that the programme will be closed on the last day of the fair," said a ministry official.
Following an agreement between Dhaka and Riyadh on manpower recruitment on Tuesday, lifting a seven-year embargo, people rushed to PKB on Thursday to enlist their names to go to KSA.
Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh signed a memorandum of understanding to recruit 12 categories of workers in housekeeping sectors.
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