Delhi govt issues notice to placement agencies: Police verification must for licence

The police verification of the proprietors of such agencies was not mandatory before, an official aware of the matter said

The Delhi government has directed the owners of placement agencies to mandatorily get police verification certificates in order to get a licence to operate, a notification issued by the labour department on Saturday said.

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The police verification of the proprietors of such agencies was not mandatory before, an official aware of the matter said.

“All Private Placement Agencies providing domestic workers are hereby directed that they should get registration on e-district portal under the service Delhi Private Placement Agency (Regulation) order 2014... It is mandatory and no registration/license shall be issued without it,” a public notice issued by SC Yadav, additional labour commissioner, said, adding that violation of the direction will lead to a ₹50,000 fine being imposed on owners, the notification said.

“The role of police is important because they can check the credentials of the people operating these enterprises and can also check that the people are not involved in the trafficking network,” said a labour department official, asking not to be named.

Labour minister Raaj Kumar Anand said the police verification of agency owners is a step towards ensuring the welfare of domestic workers. “We will also organise campaigns and awareness among the domestic workers as well as among the people to prevent exploitation of domestic workers and child labourers in the capital,” he said.

However, a senior Delhi Police officer from the licencing department said that they have no role in issuing licences to placement agencies, and the issue of police verification of their owners was not under their domain.

Subhash Bhatnagar, organising secretary of Gharelu Kamgar Panchyat Sangam, a union of domestic workers in the Capital, claimed that the government has so far not carried out a survey to identify placement agencies working in the city. According to Bhatnagar, there are over 10,000 placement agencies in the Capital. “Most of the placement agencies operating in the Capital are unregistered, and in past, several placement agencies were found to be registered on fake addresses with fake details... The space is unregulated and thus there are rooms for exploitation of the workers,” said Bhatnagar.

A retired labour official said the department enjoys little control over these placement agencies, and even those registered manage to vanish after cases of abuse of domestic workers, especially minors, emerge.

“Delhi is a huge market for domestic workers because a large number of families required domestic helps. Since the unregistered and unregulated agencies provide cheap domestic workers, many people hire domestic workers from such agencies. Many such agencies supply domestic workers by taking a once time commission and just vanishing off the radar. The labour department will have to do more than just making police verification mandatory,” said the officer.