The high-level committee headed by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will meet tomorrow and give final touches to the Labour Code on Wages, which will empower the Centre to set a common minimum wage across the country.
The inter-ministerial panel on Labour will also give final touches to the Small Factory (Facilitation and Regulation of Employment Conditions of Services) Bill, which seeks to exempt units employing less than 40 workers from 14 labour laws, a source said.
"The high-level panel will meet tomorrow to give final touches to the Wage Code and the Small Factories Bill after which they will be sent to the Cabinet for approval. They have gone through Inter Ministerial Consultation and have been vetted by the Law Ministry," the source added.
Labour Ministry has proposed to come out with a Wage Code by amalgamating the relevant provisions of the Minimum Wages Act 1948, The Payment of Wages Act 1936, The Payment of Bonus Act 1965 and The Equal Remuneration Act 1976.
The government wants to set a national minimum wage that will have a statutory provision. Currently, each state decides on the minimum wage under its jurisdiction.
According to the Labour Ministry, a national benchmark will do away with discrepancies, improve the salary threshold and bring in some pay parity across the country.
The Small Factories bill would mainly combine provisions of various labour laws applicable to small factories at one place, thus facilitating ease of compliance and reporting.
The bill proposes payment of wages through bank accounts and continuing provisions of social security without dilution.
It also provides for provision of compounding of offenses except for the offense resulting in death and serious body injury.
Besides Jaitley, the inter-ministerial committee on labour issues includes Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya, Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, Power Minister Piyush Goyal and Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) Jitendra Singh.
The government formed the high-level inter-ministerial committee to evolve a consensus on labour reforms and other issues in May.
Trade unions and government have been at loggerheads over the 12-point charter of demands and labour reforms. So far the panel has met with the unions thrice.
Taking a dig at the opposition, Dattatreya said that
during the UPA regime, the employer and employee relationship was prohibited for 65 occupations and 18 processes while the NDA government has completely banned child labour till the age of 14 years.
He also said that during the UPA regime, the offences were non-cognizable while they have been made cognizable in new law.
Similarly, he said, the government has banned adolescents employment in (between 14-18 years) in hazardous occupations, a provision which was not there in the law during UPA regime.
The minister said the government has linked the new law with right to education which was not there earlier.
He also said that under the National Child Labour Programme presently operational in 270 districts across 21 states, 11.95 lakh children have been mainstreamed.
The expenditure under the progaramme during 2010-11 to 2015-16 was Rs 669.88 crore. There are 3,230 operational training centres with enrollment of about 1.48 lakh children.
