SARBHANG

Hoteliers here, mostly Indians, fear that Bhutanese workers – difficult to find in the first place – will not be as pliable, and will surely charge more than the Indians

As a part of its exercise to clamp down on illegal Indian workers in Gelephu, the immigration office here has given a deadline to the hotel operators to employ Bhutanese workers.

Starting this January, the hotels will have to replace the existing Indian waiters and cooks with Bhutanese workers, the hoteliers say. They have just about a week to comply with the order.

Although actual figures of the number of Indians working in Gelephu hotels was not available, almost all the hotels have Indian nationals working as waiters, cooks and sweepers.

The hotel operators have submitted their lists of the number of workers required to the Ministry of Labour and Human Resources. However, they have not yet received any workers, which they were assured of being sent by December end.

“We have been told to employ Bhutanese workers from the beginning of the New Year, and we have submitted our requirements to the ministry. But we have not yet received any information on when they are coming,” a hotel manager, Arjun told BHUTAN TODAY.

Interestingly, there is also scepticism among a few hoteliers as to whether a Bhutanese waiter will be able to work as diligently as the present ones. “Indian workers easily obey the manager, but Bhutanese workers may show us their red eyes when we order them to work,” said an Indian running a hotel in town.

But it is the manager’s skill to deal with his workers politely, and I hope the Bhutanese workers will co-operate, said another.

Businesspeople say employing Indian workers is cheaper and they are easily available.

Currently, an Indian worker receives monthly salary of just Nu 1,500 to Nu 2,000 in most hotels in the town. But it is obvious that a Bhutanese would demand a much higher price.

Though the regional immigration office here had started the clampdown on Indian workers as early as 2007, the hotel industry has been so longer resisting it.

Enforcement of the law picked up full steam earlier this year. For instance, all the Indian cobblers left the town some months ago and the number of coolies has been reduced from 73 last year to about 20 at present, according to the immigration sources.

Cobblers, scrap dealers and laundry workers were asked to reside in Dadghari. But they felt discontented and many of them went back home. Most workers in Gelephu are from Rajasthan, West Bengal and Bihar.

Indian nationals holding business licenses registered in Bhutan, however, have been allowed to reside in Gelephu. Currently, Indian nationals hold about 60 per cent of the total trade licenses in Gelephu, with the similar proportion of licenses held by the hoteliers, the officials had disclosed earlier.

There are 138 business license holders in town, of whom, 83 are Indian nationals.

Now, how the business community will cooperate with the enforcement of the order will have to be watched.

By M B Subba in Gelephu in Bhutan Today

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