Assures that labour reforms will benefit employees Hyderabad: Union Minister for Labour and Employment Bandaru Dattatreya appealed to tr...
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Hyderabad: Union Minister for Labour and Employment Bandaru Dattatreya appealed to trade union leaders not to get unduly worried about the labour reforms initiated by the NDA government.
Dattatreya said the government would take labour force into confidence while dealing with workmen-related issues. “I would stand by our trade unions. You give us good suggestions. Whatever decisions we take, we will take tri- partite decisions. We will take labour into confidence,” he said.
"I would like to request labour today - don't pay heed to misinformation, wrong information. The reforms that are happening are not intended to do wrong,” he said here.
“Reforms are for good and we would like to carry out reforms for common man. We are not going to carry out reforms only for a few people. But it takes some to see the benefits. We will definitely give employability," the Union Minster said.
He was addressing a Round Table conference on Good Governance. He said under the Apprentices (Amendment) Act- 2014 passed by Parliament recently, the Centre had raised the wages of apprentices from Rs 2,000 per month to Rs 4,500 and to Rs 6000 per month in some cases.
Under Apprentice Protsahan Yojna, the government will support one lakh apprentices with a 50 percent share in their stipend over the next two-and-a-half years.
The provisions in the amended Act include making apprenticeship responsive to youth and industry, increasing skilled labour, easing of rules for employers to recruit apprentices and allowing them to undertake demand-driven training courses.
It may be recalled that trade unions affiliated to all major political parties including BJP, have held nationwide protests opposing the series of labour reforms planned by the Narendra Modi government.
Beneficiaries of Rashtriya Swashthya Bima Yojana, Aam Admi Bima Yojana (AABY) and old-age pension scheme will get a single smart card for all the three schemes.
The country has 12,000 Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) and according to worldwide sample surveys, skill performance in India is in a bad shape when compared with other countries. According to Dattatreya, India has a skill development strength of 2.8 lakh. Germany has a strength of 36 lakh, Japan has 1 crore skilled persons and China has two crores of them.”We want to reach the level of Japan by the next four years and provide employment to all needy workers,” he said.
The issuance of ordinances showed the decisiveness of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he said.
“The Prime Minister has demonstrated his bold and decisive nature many times in the last six months. The most recent being Wednesday’s approval by Union Cabinet to promulgate ordinances related to coal and insurance sectors.
“The bungling and inaction of the last ten years in these two sectors of the economy are well-known,” he stated.
