Workers left out of Israel jobs flight take legal route: ‘Mortgaged land, jewellery’

“Pick and choose policy has been adopted by the authorities to send to Israel candidates which is illegal and arbitrary…the petitioners have been deceived by the respondents (NSDC),” the petition, filed in September this year, states. The petition includes application forms along with receipts from NSDC for payment made for tickets to Israel.

The Indian Express reported in September 2024 that the job scheme for Indians, which was launched after the October 2023 Hamas attack when Palestinian workers were banned from construction sites in Israel, had been hit by a skill mismatch after an assessment process that over-promised and under-delivered when it came to workers’ abilities.

Israel has since taken the unprecedented step of allowing these workers — drawn to move by an average monthly salary, after deductions, of over Rs 1.9 lakh — to be re-deployed in unskilled or industrial jobs in non-construction sectors.

By 2024-end, around 5,000 workers had been sent via the Government-to-Government (G2G) route and an equal number via the Business-to-Business (B2B) route. With Israel opening up other sectors for these workers, the numbers are likely to have gone up this year.

The petitioners from UP have also attached lists of applicants who were put on flights for Tel Aviv, mostly in October 2024, after they were ignored. These workers, the petitioners say, had cleared interviews, aptitude tests, medical tests and police verification after them.

They have also described their visits to the NSDC office where they were “assured” that they would be sent. The plea states that “the petitioners are poor persons. They were ready to go to Israel in order to search for their bread and butter. Anyhow they collected money/ fare to go to Israel but till today they are in India…”

The lawyer for the workers, Ashok Kumar Dwivedi, says only one substantive hearing has taken place so far. “In the last three or four hearings, the case was listed so late in the cause list that it was not taken up for hearing. But we are confident of success because our prayer is a simple one: if the job contract for Israel is for five years and the petitioners have already lost more than a year, they deserve to be given a full five-year contract,” says Dwivedi.

NSDC did not respond to queries from The Indian Express. On December 23, 10 days after The Indian Express first sent a list of queries about the petition, the NSDC issued a notice on its website announcing that refunds would be available for the selected candidates who could not be taken to Israel.

The stranded workers say a refund is not what they want. They complain about facing the ire of their families as well as mounting interest for their loans and mortgages. “We are not worried about security in Israel since the others who have gone told us they are safe and have got used to life in underground bunkers in the event of air attacks,” says another petitioner, Manoj Chauhan (45), a mason from Azamgarh.

“We were among those who cleared the tests from the second batch of applicants. Others have gone to Israel and come back on leave also. They have made a new life,” he says.

Niraj Chauhan, who is leading the workers, says that over these past few months, he has taken groups of over 100 workers to meet UP Labour Minister Anil Rajbhar, and visited NSDC’s head office as well. “All these people keep telling us our visas will come shortly but nothing has been done. In the meantime, the NSDC is conducting more recruitment for Israel in UP and Telangana,” he says.

According to Ravendra Singh (42) from Fatehpur, the NSDC “should offer us interest for our money that has been lying with them”. “Now, we have all collected Rs 500 each and paid the lawyers to file the petition in the Allahabad High Court. It is our last option,” he says.