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Centre To Bring New Bill On Wages, Industrial Relations During Next Parliamentary Session

• By  Textile Excellence
• March 01, 2017

Union Minister of State for Labour and Employment Bandaru Dattatreya has said that the Centre plans to bring new bills on wages and industrial relations during the next session of the Parliament.

Speaking on the sidelines of a recent interaction organised by the Southern India Mills’ Association (SIMA), he said that the Code on Wages and the Code on Industrial Relations will be among the four labour codes which the government would introduce in order to replace 44 labour laws in order to improve the ease of doing business in the country.

He said that tripartite consultations are over and the inter-ministerial group has begun discussions after which the bills would be sent to the cabinet.

Describing the labour codes as “a win-win situation for workers and employees," he said that a Code on Social Security and a Code on Safety, Health and Working Conditions for workers would also be introduced.

He said that since existing labour laws would be amalgamated into four codes to make things simple, the move would save efforts, cost as well as lessen the compliance burden of various establishments.

He stated that the government has replaced 56 registers and forms prescribed under the rules of nine central acts with five common registers, adding that this has reduced the number of data fields in five registers to 144 from the existing 933 fields in 56 registers.

Stating that the ministry is also developing a software for the five common registers, he said that the software would be put on the ministry’s 'Shram Suvidha' portal so that it could be downloaded for free in order to facilitate maintenance of these registers in a digitised form.

He said that all provident fund (PF) subscribers would be provided with a Universal Account Number (UAN) by the end of March 2017 and that about 2.1 crore out of 4.8 crore provident fund subscribers have already been given UANs.

Since UANs are being linked to Aadhaar cards and bank accounts, workers would be able to access funds as well as services wherever they go, he said, adding that this would address problems faced by migrant workers who are being employed in large numbers.

The minister claimed that there would be no ‘inspector raj’, everything would be transparent and claims are being settled by the employees’ provident fund office in three days. The claims settlements ratio stood at 98%, he said.

He also said that units which employ more than 50 workers have been provided labour identity numbers (LINs). 

Textile Excellence