Draft labour rules: No licence for contractors with criminal history

Norms also include past insolvency; move not enough to weed out fly-by-night contractors, say industry experts

The central government has proposed bare minimum eligibility norms for manpower agencies or contractors to get a first-of-its-kind pan-India licence for hiring contract workers for a period of five years.

The government has proposed just two conditions for contractors to get a common licence valid across all Indian states.: That they should not have been convicted of a crime or been insolvent in the past two years.

“For the purposes of obtaining licence, the contractor as an entity or as an individual should not be an un-discharged insolvent or convicted any time during the last two years of an offence which is