Kathmandu. 323 Nepali workers at Classic Apparels, a garment factory, are returning to Nepal. The company is bearing all expenses.

Overseeing the process from Cairo, Nepal’s ambassador to Egypt Jhabindra Aryal said, “They will board a chartered plane of the Jordan Aviation Airlines on Monday evening and land in Kathmandu on the morning of Tuesday.”

There are more than 1,200 Nepali workers in that company and those being repatriated are workers whose contract period had expired and could not be renewed because of the corona pandemic.

The Embassy of Nepal in Egypt, which also looks after Jordan, initiated the repatriation process after learning about the company’s proposal to bear all costs incurred during the process. “All procedures have been completed and permission for a chartered flight has been procured from Nepal’s authorized body, Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN),” ambassador Aryal said. “All 323 Nepalis will be in Nepal tomorrow.”

Ambassador Aryal estimates the number of Nepali workers in Jordan to be around 15,000.

Dead body of a Nepali worker, which could not be sent home due to the COVID-19 lockdown, will also be sent in the same flight.

The company informed that the repatriated factory workers could be recalled according to their performance evaluation after the situation became better.