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The government on Wednesday introduced a Bill in the Lok Sabha with provisions to increase working hours as well as overtime by amending the Factories Act 1948.
The Bill was introduced by Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya after Speaker Sumitra Mahajan over-ruled objections by some Opposition members.
While former Labour Minister Mallikarjun Kharge (Congress) wanted the ‘important legislation’ to be sent to the Standing Committee, NK Premachandran (RSP) said it ‘infringed’ upon State powers, and Shankar Dutta (CPI-M) objected to it being introduced as it was similar to the one introduced in 2014, which was before the Standing Committee.
Dattatreya assured the members that this Bill had “comprehensive amendments only related to two sections” pertaining to increasing working hours and overtime from 50 hours to 100-125 hours per quarter, in line with the International Labour Organisation’s prescribed limit of 144 hours of overtime.
The Factories (Amendment) Bill, 2016 seeks to enhance the limit of overtime hours to maximise the limit of overtime hours.
It also seeks to empower the Centre, in addition to the State governments, to make exempting rules and orders in respect of total number of hours of work on overtime in a quarter, to ensure uniformity in its application across the country.
The Cabinet has given ex-post facto approval for introduction of Factories Amendment Bill 2016 in Parliament.
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