Labour Minister Harish Rawat today said his ministry would oppose any move of the Industry Department to implement a hire and fire policy in the proposed National Manufacturing and Investment Zones.
"It is our work to prevent anything of this sort if it happens," Rawat said on the sidelines of a meet organised by the Institute of Trade and Industrial Development.
The concept paper has suggested that the Contract Labour Abolition Act would not be applicable to units in the NMIZ.
The DIPP also wanted the right to join unions to be curtailed and confined to workers drawing a salary below a certain limit."This is unconstitutional," Rawat said.
He said if any such thing happens, the Labour Ministry would intervene to stop it.
"In case something of this sort comes up, we will speak to the industry, as well as the government, to prevent it," he said.
Aiming to boost the share of manufacturing in the GDP from the present level of 15 per cent to 25 per cent by 2022, the DIPP had conceptualised NMIZs, which could almost be industrial towns subsuming special economic zones, export-oriented units and domestic tariff areas.
