The Hindu Business Line : New draft Bill for unorganised labour by month-end

THE new draft of the proposed Unorganised Sector Labour Bill will be finalised before the month-end and will be circulated to the Ministries concerned, including Finance, for their opinion.

Government sources told Business Line that the Ministry of Labour is working in a time-bound manner and is expected to complete the draft by the third week of this month. The Government plans to introduce the Bill in the coming winter session of Parliament.

"While the essence of the Bill remains the same, the objective of the exercise is to fine-tune the details. In a way, it could be said that the earlier Bill is reviewed instead of redrafted because no major changes are envisaged," officials said.

The earlier Bill, initiated by the erstwhile National Democratic Alliance (NDA) Government, was never introduced in Parliament because though it was cleared by a Group of Ministers (GoM), headed by the former Deputy Prime Minister, Mr L.K. Advani, it never received the Cabinet's nod which is necessary for introduction to Parliament.

The Bill also did not have clarity on the funding pattern and there were several proposals, none of which was finally approved by the Finance Ministry.

This time, the focus is to make the Bill "realistic" in terms of implementability so that once in place, it could actually become operational.

The main concern, sources said, is how to set up the collection system because almost all unorganised sector employment is characterised by an informal relationship between the employer and the employee.

Additionally, there are a very large number of migrant and seasonal workers. The Bill proposes contribution on part of the worker, the employer and a third contribution by the Government and intends to cover some 37 crore workers.

"The funding pattern would be crucial and we are trying to work out the quantum of burden that would fall on the Government," sources said.

The Government would also take into consideration the pension plan that is being worked out by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) for the unorganised sector workers.

Last year, the Finance Ministry had given the mandate to the ADB to work out a pension plan for the workers in the Indian unorganised sector. The Bank is expected to submit its recommendations by the end of the current fiscal.

Sources, however, pointed out that there would be a provision for extending the cover in a phased manner based on sector-specific and geographic considerations.