The Delhi government has directed the owners of brokerage agencies to compulsorily obtain a police verification certificate to obtain a license to operate, a notification issued by the labor department said on Saturday. Police verification of owners of such agencies was not mandatory earlier, said an official aware of the matter.
“All private placement agencies are hereby directed to register on e-district portal under Delhi Private Placement Agency (Regulation) order 2014… It is mandatory and no registration/license will be issued without it, In a public notice issued additional labor commissioner SC Yadav said that violation of this instruction will result in a fine of ₹50,000 to be imposed on the owners, the notification said.
“The role of the police is important because they can check the credentials of the people running these businesses and they can also check that these people are not involved in a human trafficking network,” said a labor ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Labor Minister Raaj Kumar Anand said the police verification of agency owners is a step to ensure the welfare of domestic workers. “We will also organize campaigns and awareness among domestic workers as well as among the people to prevent the exploitation of domestic workers and child laborers in the capital,” he said.
However, a senior Delhi Police officer from the licensing department said that they have no role in issuing licenses to brokerage agencies and the issue of police verification of their owners does not come under their domain.
Subhash Bhatnagar, organizing secretary of Gharelu Kamgar Panchyat Sangam, a domestic workers’ union in the capital, claimed that the government has not yet conducted a survey to identify the brokerage agencies working in the city. According to Bhatnagar, there are more than 10,000 brokerage agencies in the capital. “Most of the brokerage agencies operating in the capital are unregistered and in the past, several brokerage agencies were found to be registered at fake addresses with fake details… The space is unregulated and hence there are spaces for exploitation of workers,” Bhatnagar said.
A retired worker said the ministry has little control over these placement agencies and even those that are registered manage to disappear after cases of abuse of domestic workers, especially minors, surface.
“Delhi is a huge market for domestic workers as a large number of families needed domestic help. Since unregistered and unregulated agencies provide cheap domestic workers, many people hire domestic workers from these agencies. Many such agencies supply domestic workers by taking a one-time commission and simply disappearing from the radar. The Ministry of Labor will have to do more than making police verification mandatory,” said a police officer.
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