Days after presenting the Interim Budget 2009-10, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherji today called for investments in infrastructure, adequate credit support to poorer sections, and facilities for upgrading skills and reskilling work force while Deputy chairman of Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia underscored the promise held in the interim budget of an additional injection of Rs 60,000 crore.
Inaugurating the 42nd Indian Labour Conference, a tripartite forum for government, industry and workers, Mukherji called for strengthening the social welfare net and for protection of the pension systems besides protecting jobs even at the cost of low compensation in the face of the global financial crisis.
Mukherji sounded a warning to industrialized nations like US, which are tending to be protectionist in a bid to bail out their own economies. He said that jobs must be protected in the country even at the cost of reducing the wages at various levels.
He said: ''We are already witnessing worrying signs of protectionism in the world’s biggest economy We will need to argue against this trend at the international foray, he said. Earlier in Parliament yesterday the minister had hinted at the possibility of a third economic stimulus package to help industries face the meltdown While Mukherji was silent on the interim budget, it was Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia speaking at the same conference who raised the issue of the budget in the context of the global meltdown.
Ahluwalia said that the Finance Minister has been kind to say that an additional allocation of 0 .5 to 1 per cent of GDP would need to be injected into the Plan expenditure when the general budget was made. He said that would mean an additional Rs 60,000 crore and the Planning Commission concurred with this. He added that parliamentary and Constitutional constraints had prevented the Government from making these commitments in the interim budget. He said that if one per cent of GDP was additionally allocated, it could go to rehabilitation of urban areas, for relief in rural areas and for infrastructure.
This would give a substantial stimulus to economy and we will avoid a decline in production that is being seen in other countries, he said.
The Indian Labour Conference the first of which was chaired by B R Ambedkar in 1942 is meant to be an annual interaction between representatives of the government, employers and employees.
But trade unions present today noted it had been convened more than a year after the ILC held in April 2007 and at a time when Government departments were in farewell mode prior to elections.
While these conferences are inaugurate by the prime Minister and chaired by the Labour Minister and usually has many Central ministers attending it, the ongoing conference being held while Parliament is in session saw the Labour Minister Oscar Fernandes leave immediately after the inauguration.
AITUC general secretary Mahadevan said that the meeting could not take place for 15 months as the Prime Minister had no time.
Labour Ministry officials said that there had been no delay and its significance was not being reduced in any way by the absence of ministers.
The conference is dwelling on issues related to recession, besides those concerning contract and migrant labour, working conditions of sales representatives and skill development.
The conference has been called in the context of the large number of jobs lost in several industries following closure and low production.
According to the Labour Ministry five million jobs have been lost in the last three months of 2008 alone.
