2005 - YEAR OF INITIATIVES FOR WELFARE OF WORKERS / Dec 16, 2005 / Press Information Bureau
From Indiapensions
2005 - YEAR OF INITIATIVES FOR WELFARE OF WORKERS
The Labour Ministry as an article of faith and commitment to the welfare of the workers took several initiatives for improving their standard of living and working conditions while protecting and safeguarding their interests during the 2005. The initiatives particularly came in areas of evolving broad consensus on rationalisation of labour laws and for drafting a model legislation for providing social security to workers in the unorganised sector who constitute 93% of the country's workforce with many of them living in poverty.
IMPETUS TO TRIPARTISM
The Labour Ministry is one of the oldest Ministries of the Government of India and has been striving to have harmonious industrial relations in the country. It continued efforts to promote the ethos and culture of tripartism. The biggest initiative in this direction came from the Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh who attend the 40th Session of the national level apex tripartite conference of social partners, the Indian Labour Conference, highlighting the government's commitment at the highest level to tripartite consultation process on labour issues. The issue of providing social security to 37 crore workers in the informal sector, as envisaged in the National Common Minimum Programme was discussed by the Indian Labour Conference. The conference unanimously recommended to immediately finalise the proposed legislation in this regard.
The Board of Trustees of Employees Provident Fund met 4 times and the Employees State Insurance Corporation Board met 5 times for taking various important decisions. Both these bodies are tripartite in nature.
LABOUR REFORMS
The Ministry of Labour has been seized of the need to make amendments to certain labour legislations on priority with a view to make industry efficient, cost effective and globally competative as well as create more employment opportunities in view of the globalisation of the economy. While contemplating the requisite amendments, the Ministry has been at pains to safeguard interests of workers and ensure them an adequate safety net. While addressing the Indian Labour Conference, which discussed proposed amendment to labour laws, the Prime Minister told the social partners that in the interest of expanding and manufacturing base and for creating more job opportunities "we must make our labour laws less rigid". He also called for an end to the tyranny of inspector raj.
Social Security
The organised sector has had the benefit of the introduction of 'Rajiv Gandhi Shramik Kalyan Yojana' under the Employees State Insurance Corporation (ESIC). Under the scheme, workers insured with ESIC who lose employment involuntarily will get 50 per cent of their last drawn wages for six months. Orders have been issued for extension of coverage of the ESI scheme to entire country. At present it is applicable to one-third of the country. The ESI Corporation has decided to set up 4 super specialty hospitals for the workers in the 4 zones of the country. Rs. 200 crore have been sanctioned for this purpose so far. A special drive has been launched by ESIC for extending its coverage. It has resulted in enrolling 59,000 new members so far.
Fixing of interest rate on Provident Fund deposits of over 4 crore members of Employees Provident Fund for 2005-06 remained one of the major pre-occupations of the EPFO and the Labour Ministry. While the Employees Provident Fund Organisation recommended an eight per cent interest rate, the Chairman of the Central Board of Trustees announced 8.5 per cent interest rate by mobilising reserved funds of the EPFO in order to provide maximum benefit to the subscribers.
A special drive was launched by the EPF for increasing its coverage. As a result 39,000 new establishments have been brought within the purview of the Employees Provident Fund. The EPFO created 11 regions under the EPF scheme for putting in place more efficient and better delivery mechanism. In its drive to provide service nearer the doorsteps of its beneficiaries, the EPFO opened new offices at Karimnagar and Siddipet in Andhra Pradesh and Jangipur in West Bengal.
The EPFO mobilised resources internally to meet the payment of an interest of 9.5 per cent to the subscribers for 2004-05.
Welfare of Unorganised Sector Workers
Welfare of workers in the unorganised sector remained a priority of the Ministry during the year. The cess under the Beedi workers welfare scheme was increased from Rs. 2/- to Rs. 4/- per one thousand beedis which has resulted in an increase of about Rs. 100 crore in the revenue for the Welfare Fund for Beedi Workers. The procedure for Housing Scheme has been simplified and Rs. 50 crore were released for Beedi Workers Welfare Housing Scheme during the year. The housing subsidy under the scheme has been doubled to Rs. 40,000/- per unit. A new hospital has been sanctioned for beedi workers at Jaldha in Plurulia district in West Bengal taking the total number of hospitals for beedi workers in the country to eight. To ensure that workers receive living wages, the Ministry embarked and introduced the system of external monitoring of implementations of the Minimum Wages Act. It also revised the wage ceiling for the payment of wages from Rs. 1600/- to Rs. 6500/-
To promote employment of women the Factories Act is being amended to allow women to work during night shift with proper safeguards.
Skill Development
Another important initiatives of the Ministry of Labour and Employment has been to harness immense potential of the vast human resource in order to meet the demands of the global labour market. The training programmes have been reviewed to create multi skilled workforce of international standard. The Ministry has taken up ambitious plan to modernise and upgrade Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs). It has targeted 500 ITIs for conversion into centres of excellence in the 10th Plan with domestic and World Bank Assistance. 100 of these ITIs are being modernised with the internal resources of the Ministry. At the same time the Ministry has been working for public-private partnership to ensure greater and active involvement of industry in all aspects of training.
Elimination of Child Labour
The Government proposes to eliminate child labour in hazardous industries through the National Child Labour Projects Scheme. During the Tenth Plan, the number of National Child Labour Projects has been extended to 250 districts. Under the scheme children withdrawn from work in the age group of 5- 10 years would be put into primary schools under the 'Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan' while those in the age group of 9-14 years would be put up in special schools under the NCLPs for preparing them for getting into mainstream of education.
