Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Friday, May 27, 2005
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Friday, May 27, 2005 |
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Industry & Economy
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Labour Reforms Centre willing to remove rigidity in labour laws Our Bureau
Kolkata , May 26 THE Union Government is willing to remove the rigidity in national labour laws, thereby, allowing the manufacturing sector to increase or decrease the strength of labour force as per requirement from time-to-time. Indicating this here on Thursday, Mr Anwarul Hoda, Member, Planning Commission, said that a final draft in this regard was ready for discussions with the political parties. Mr Hoda said that "entry and exit" barriers for investors in any manufacturing operation would also be simplified to help this sector grow at a faster pace. He said that the mid-term appraisal of the Tenth Plan has observed that the service sector in the country witnessed a phenomenal growth in the last couple of years while the manufacturing sector did not do well. The Planning Commission was of the view that the manufacturing sector must move ahead of the service sector. India, he felt, has maintained its presence in the global market in labour-intensive products, but not in value-added items. This was because of poor growth in high-tech manufacturing activities. Constraints in achieving a balanced growth in these two sectors were identified, and the Planning Commission had submitted its recommendations to various ministries at the Centre suggesting how these could be removed. Speaking at a session on "Centre-State interface for industrial development of West Bengal", Mr Hoda said "we don't yet have world class infrastructure such as seaports, airports and roads" which are a pre-requisite for development. Referring to the successes of Chinese development, he said that India has so far invested about $3 billion in roads and highways as against China's nearly $30 billion. Hence, the Planning Commission has recommended a massive dose of investment towards infrastructure development. He informed the FICCI organised gathering that the Planning Commission recently has cleared an investment proposal of about Rs 55,000 crore for construction of 10,000 km long national highways, to be taken up during the Tenth Plan along with the existing Golden Quadrilateral highway project. This apart, dedicated roads would be constructed only for good traffic. The new highway project would be taken up through public-private partnership. The Centre's contribution would be about Rs 18,000 crore. Mr Hoda urged investors to safely invest in the manufacturing of auto component parts and pharmaceutical industries because India had the strength to play a dominating role in international market in these two sectors. He observed that as per indications, many generic drugs would be sourced from India by the US drug manufacturers from 2010 onwards. He said the Planning Commission was in favour of giving maximum investment priorities in West Bengal because of its close proximity to South East Asia.
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