The government today said it has a proposal to bring comprehensive amendments to the Apprentices Act 1961 to provide flexibility with safeguards and facilitate wider participation of youth and industry.
Minister of State for Labour and Employment Vishnu Deo Sai told the Rajya Sabha in a written reply that the proposal for amendments has been made keeping in view the suggestions recieved from various stakeholders.
"The government has a proposal to bring comprehensive amendments to the Apprentices Act 1961 keeping in view the suggestions recieved from various stakeholders to provide necessary flexibility with safeguards and facilitate wider participation of youth and the industry," Sai said.
He said the present framework tightly regulates the number of apprentices trade-wise and is not attractive to youth because of the low rate of stipend.
"Further, the industry is averse to participate because the scheme is not viable for the small industries, burden of compliance is heavy," he said.
He said that in 2013-14, 2.11 lakh trade apprentices were appointed in the industry out of a potential indentified capacity of 3.6 lakh seats for trade apprentices.
In 2013-14, overall 2.82 lakh apprentices were appointed against 4.90 lakh apprenticeship seats identified in different categories of apprentices, he said.
The Union Cabinet has cleared amendments to the Factories Act, the Apprentices Act and the Labour Laws (exemption from furnishing returns and maintaining registers by certain establishments) Act recently.
Replying to another question, Sai said that as per the study conducted by National Skill Development Corporation, incremental requirement of skilled manpower in real estate services by the year 2022 is 140 lakh.
He said his ministry is implementing vocational training programme to provide skilled labour forces including to the real estate. He said the Craftsman Training Scheme is being implemented through 11,001 ITIs with more than 15 lakh seats.
He said the Apprenticeship Training Scheme under the Apprentices Act 1961 through 28,500 industrial establishment with a total of 3.59 lakh seats have been identified. He also said Skill Development Initiative scheme based on modular employment skills through 9420 vocation training providers is also being drawn up.
