At least seven Bills initiated by the labour ministry are awaiting Parliament’s nod, but just one — the Unorganised Sector Workers Social Security Bill — has been listed for the House session beginning tomorrow.
Some of these Bills, which deal with key labour issues, have been awaiting the House nod for as many as three years, thanks to procedural delays and often “lack of time”.
There is an air of uncertainty in the ministry on the fate of these Bills, despite the victory of the Congress in the state elections and the prevailing mood of optimism in the government. “We are keeping our fingers crossed and hoping that they are passed this session,” said an official.
The Unorganised Sector Workers Social Security Bill has been passed by the Rajya Sabha and has been listed for the coming Lok Sabha session. The Bill will legally entitle the unorganised sector workers, comprising 94 per cent of the country’s labour force, to some social security benefits.
But the other six Bills, some dating back to the early days of the UPA government, are still in the queue. The Bill to amend the Labour Laws (Exemption from furnishing returns and maintaining registers by certain establishments) Act, will allow maintenance of registers and submission of returns through soft devices, making enforcement and compliance of labour laws faster and easier in times of rapid expansion of IT. The Bill was introduced in the Rajya Sabha in August 2005.
Official amendments to this Bill were approved by the Cabinet in October last year but are yet to be moved in Parliament.
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A similar victim of delays is the Bill to amend Section 66 of the Factories Act, 1948, to provide flexibility in employment of women workers for night shifts, after taking adequate safeguards for their safety and transportation from the factory to the nearest point of their residence. It was introduced in the Lok Sabha on August 16, 2005.
The Plantation Labour Act, 1951, amendment Bill, which will change the definition of employer, family and workers, and add a new chapter in safety to bring it in line with the provisions of the Child Labour Act, 1986, has been introduced in Parliament and was expected to be passed in the last session.
Another casualty of delays has been the Workmen’s Compensation Act, 1923, amendment Bill, which will replace the term ‘workman’ with employee to make it gender neutral. It also incorporates provisions to remove restrictive clauses in Schedule I of the Act to make it more worker-friendly. The Bill was approved by the Cabinet in August this year and has been introduced in Parliament.
A Bill to amend the Payment of Gratuity Act, 1972, to cover teachers in educational institutes was introduced in the Lok Sabha on November 27 last year. It was to be introduced in Parliament in the last session, but was jostled out by other non-legislative business. The Bill was referred to the Standing Committee on Labour for examination and later it was decided to implement it retrospectively from April 1997. So a new Bill was prepared viz Payment of Gratuity Amendment Bill, 2008, and approved by the Cabinet in July 2008. It was to be introduced in the last session.
A more recent Bill is the amendment of the Employees State Insurance Act, 1948, to enable utilisation of medical facilities of the Employees State Insurance Corporation for implementing the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana. It will replace the Ordinance promulgated in September this year. The Bill has been introduced in Parliament but is yet to be passed.