Summary:
- The issue of labour reforms has been under debate for some years now.
- The present government has come up with a set of new measures. After having brought in amendments to the Factories Act and Apprenticeship Act, another set of reforms have been initiated.
- These reforms announced recently, like unified labour portal, universal account number for EPF among others, are expected to help in doing business easily apart from helping others.
- If “Make in India” is to be realised, then we have to work on improving ease of doing business in the country.
- These initiatives are expected to end the ‘Inspector Raj’ in the country. This is expected to bring down the corruption and increase the Transparency and Cleanliness within the system.
- The measures announced are, in some ways, far reaching.
- It becomes easier for the small and medium industries to cope with the regulatory burden of the labour laws. Small firms can aspire to grow large now.
- A large number of small firms do not become large because they don’t have the man power resources to handle the regulatory burden.
- These initiatives mark a very strong communication campaign to see that what has been announced is actually implemented immediately.
- Workers are considered to be the stake holders. But they are often not taken into account during the discussions.
- We have Workers Aristocracy in our country. 8% workers are in the organized sector while 92% of workers are in the informal sector.
- To create more jobs, a genuine partnership should be created between labour and management.