Industry should move much faster in adopting occupational safety: Secretary of labour and employment

Labour and Employment Secretary Arti Ahuja has urged the industry to ensure that occupational safety and health standards relating to the particular industry were in force. Ahuja also stated that occupational safety and health was very crucial and there was a separate code also on it. She had urged industry to move ahead much faster in implementing irrespective of the Code.

Many states have already notified their rules under the new Labour Codes, and the Centre is following up with the other states, Arti Ahuja, Secretary, Ministry of Labour and Employment, said in a FICCI event recently.

Addressing the 88th AGM of FICCI AIOE (All India Organization of Employers), Ahuja said that no other country in the world has a database of its unorganised workers, and the e-Shram portal today has more than 29 crore people registered on the portal.

"We are in the process of linking the portal to career portals along with various skilling centres. We also have the National Career Services portal and every month nearly 5 lakh vacancies are posted. I would urge all employers to post their vacancies on the portal," she emphasised.

Speaking on the rights of contract workers, the secretary stated that they were also entitled to minimum wages and bonuses, etc., and industry must ensure that those entitlements of contract and outsourced workers were also given to them. "It is a duty that is incumbent upon us as citizens as equal partners in the economy and hence the industry must be cognizant of this," she added.

Highlighting the pension scheme for the workers, Ahuja said that the government already had a 'Donate a Pension' scheme in place. "I would strongly urge the industry to intercede with your employees and professional people if you can take up donation of pensions on a campaign mode for outsourced or contractual workers. This will help them a lot as it is a form of social security," added the secretary.

Ahuja further stated the gig and platform work were now becoming a reality and it was dynamic in nature as more and more people were opting for these platforms.

"Let us also have a separate vertical on these platforms. The aggregators working in this sector are not so federated under any industry body. This is something which is the need of the hour as aggregators are working for the workers and all this needs to be collated," she asserted.

Subhrakant Panda, President, FICCI, said that the government had been taking several transformative steps towards making India more competitive and attractive for investments.

"The legislative reforms in labour, financial sector and several others have already put India in an advantageous position," he added. The Labour Codes will establish transparent, answerable and simple mechanism reducing to one registration, one license and one return for all codes and implementation of these codes will enable India to further improve the Ease of Doing Business, stated Panda.

Shishir Jaipuria, President, AIOE, said that the government's proactive measures in dealing with contentious labour issues have been welcomed and hailed as one of the most progressive reforms.

"Digitalisation of the processes under the new Labour Codes currently and in future as well will lead to ease of compliance both for the employers and employees and provide social security to the informal sector of India," he added.

( With inputs from ANI )