New Delhi:Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday unveiled a string of labour reforms, including measures to end ‘inspector raj’, asserting that ease of doing business is “essential” to ensure ‘Make-in-India’ campaign is successful.
He dedicated a number of schemes under Shramev Jayate (work alone triumphs) programme which includes portability through universal account number for employee provident fund, single window portal to enable doing business with labour ministry and labour inspection scheme in central sphere.
Modi said these steps exemplified his government’s approach of ‘minimum government and maximum governance’. Elaborating on steps to end the inspector raj — harassment by officials, Modi said a transparent labour inspection scheme is being developed to check arbitrariness.
While so far the units for inspection were selected locally without any objective criteria, the new scheme envisages that serious matters will be covered under the mandatory inspection list. A computerised list of inspections will be generated randomly on predetermined objective criteria and complaints-based inspection will also be determined centrally based on data and evidence. There will also be provision of Emergency List for inspection of serious cases. “We have replaced 16 forms (which factory owners had to fill) with one form, which is available online.
Now computer draw will decide which inspector (labour) will go for inspection to which factory and he will have to upload his report online in 72 hours. “These facilities are what I call minimum government, maximum governance. I have been hearing about ‘inspector raj’ since childhood,” Modi said.
Noting that it is the responsibility of the government to simplify processes for doing trade, the Prime Minister said, “Ease of business is the first and foremost requirement if ‘Make In India’ has to be made successful. Ease of business is the priority for Make In India.” Inaugurating the ‘Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay Shramev Jayate Karyakram’ organised by the Labour Ministry, Modi also reached out to 4.2 lakh ITI students through SMS as he greeted the achievers with ITI degrees in various fields, hailing the undergraduate technical course. Besides the ITI students, about one crore EPFO subscribers also got SMSes regarding portability through UAN and about 6.50 lakh establishments and 1,800 inspectors got SMSes about Unified Labour Portal which, the government believes will make for a transparent and accountable Labour Inspection Scheme. The Prime Minister said that this event is different from other launches as the message has reached to the stakeholders at the same time.
Laying emphasis on skill development in Apprenticeship Protsahan Yojana that he launched, the Prime Minister said that the country has huge potential to provide manpower to the world, which will require this by 2020.
Presently there are 2.82 lakh apprentices training against 4.9 lakh seats. An initiative to the apprenticeship scheme has been undertaken and the particular scheme will support one lakh apprentices during the period up to March 2017. (PTI)
