Government to Introduce Labour Laws Reforms in next Budget Session
NEW DELHI:Government is set to introduce a second wave of labour reforms with the Bandaru Dattatreya-led ministry finalising new bills and legislative amendments that will be taken up in the upcoming budget session.
The plan is put two new bills along with amendments to two existing labour laws in the next session in February. The measures are multi-dimensional and ambitious in scope, one of them said— enforcing the ban on child labour, simplifying rules for small units and relaxing provident fund norms as the government looks to move a large proportion of the workforce into the organised sector, thus ensuring greater protection for them.
The new bills are the Small Factories (Regulation of Employment and Other Conditions of Service) Act, 2014, and the National Workers Vocational Institute Act, 2015. The government will also seek to push amendments to Employees’ Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952, and the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment (CLPRA) Bill, both of which have pending in the Rajya Sabha since 2012, a senior official said.
Labour minister Dattatreya and his officials will meet state labour secretaries, trade unions and industry representatives next week to apprise them of the government’s action plan for the next round of reforms. “We want to take all stakeholders on board before we introduce the legislation in Parliament,” said an official who will participate in this crucial meeting, asking not to be named.
The Small Factories (Regulation of Employment and other Conditions of Service) Act, which will be applicable to manufacturing units employing less than 40 workers, is unified legislation that will do away with the current regime that calls for compliance with more than 14 laws, thus encouraging small manufacturing units to move toward employing an organized workforce. The amendment to the child labour Act of 1986 will impose a complete ban on child labour up to 14 years of age, including domestic work, a key reform that is in sync with India’s Right to Education Act.
The government got two out of three labour amendment bills passed in Parliament during the winter session, easing apprenticeship rules for employers and making compliance with labour laws easy for small firms by amending the Apprenticeship Act, 1961, and the Labour Laws (exemption from furnishing returns and maintaining registers by certain establishments) Act, 1988.
Source:Economictimes
