Nurses complain of lower salaries
According to CBI, the travel agency illegally collected Rs 19.5 lakh from each of the 1,200 candidates
By : krishna kumar k.e.
Update: 2015-05-24 06:52 GMT
Kochi: The candidates who were taken to Kuwait by a recruitment agency after they coughed up lakhs of rupees as recruitment fee are now being offered jobs with less salaries than promised earlier. “We’re told that we would be given jobs in hospitals under the ministry of health, Kuwait. However, now they are saying that we’ll be given nurses’ jobs in clinics with much less salary,” said a candidate selected by the Al Zarafa recruitment agency which is facing a CBI probe.
According to the CBI, the travel agency illegally collected Rs 19.5 lakh from each of the 1,200 candidates though the agency’s agreement with the Kuwait government for recruitment of nurses to hospitals was to charge only Rs 19, 500. “The salary now offered is at least Rs 50, 000 less. Many have taken loans and sold their property just to take up these jobs and now we are being cheated,” said the candidate over phone.
Meanwhile, even as the CBI is looking for the agency owner M.V. Varghese, the latter has issued a notice to the candidates saying that the “issue of less salaried jobs” will be taken up with the Kuwaiti authorities and sorted out.
“There is a strong apprehension among the selected candidates about the posting and salary now offered by the Kuwaiti government though the candidates recruited in December 2014 were taken for the Ministry of Health, Kuwait,” said Varghese in the notice.
However, he cautioned them not to make the issue public. “Whatever the issue, I’ll sort it out…Please stay away from unnecessary talk and exchange of words…,” the notice read.