Ministry of Labour and Employment strives to safeguard the interests of workers in organized and unorganized sectors

Following material was distributed in the Press Conference addressed by the Minister of State (IC) for Labour & Employment, Shri Bandaru Dattatreya, here today.

            The Ministry of Labour and Employment strives to safeguard the interests of workers from the country’s organized and unorganized sectors, while simultaneously providing an enabling environment for industry. Labour is one of the most critical factors of production. The Ministry of Labour & Employment is committed to promote an environment conducive for the country’s inclusive growth and development.

The welfare and social security of workers  besides imparting training to the unskilled labour force via vocational skills training, to improve their quality of life through progressive policies, programmes, schemes constitutes the core priorities for the Ministry.

Initiatives for Organised worker:

Social Security for Organized Workers:

Initiatives by EPFO:

(i)                 Digitization of complete database of  4,24,58,329 EPF subscribers and allotment of UAN to each of them.

(ii)               UAN is being seeded with Bank account and Aadhar Card and other KYC details for financial inclusion.

(iii)             EPF account of employee to be updated monthly and at the same time he will be informed through SMS.

(iv)             Direct access to their EPF accounts and will also enable them to consolidate all their previous accounts.

Initiatives in Progress:

(i)                 Special drive is being taken up for enrolling contract and construction workers.

Initiatives by ESIC:

(i)                 Ceiling on funds given to States increased from existing Rs.1500 per IP family to Rs.2000 from 1.4.2014 with provisions of  incremental increase every year

(ii)               State Executive Committee to be constituted which would ensure availability of medical/para medical manpower, drugs, monitor SST referrals and shall have powers to empanel/de-empanel tie up hospitals and also powers for special repairs i.e. Rs. 3 crore for 200 bedded and Rs.5 crore for more than 200 bedded hospitals

(iii)             To ensure wider access of medical care to Insured Persons(IP)/their families as well as to non-IPs, the Corporation has taken up with all State Governments for utilization of underutilized dispensaries/ hospitals of ESIS/ESIC to non-IPs and vice a versa.

(iv)             Coverage of ESI Act extended to 56 new areas in the country during 2014-15(upto 30.12.2014).

(v)               Completion of 300 bedded hospital at Kandivali, Mumbai and 300 bedded portions at Alwar, Rajasthan.

Initiatives for Unorganised Worker:

1.                  Social Security for Unorganized Workers:

Initiatives in progress

 Issue of Unorganised Workers Card as per the Act

(i)                                       Identification and registration of unorganized workers as per the Unorganized Workers Social Security Act, 2008 leading to creation of database of unorganized workers.

(ii)                                     Issue of portable, smart card to unorganized workers with linkages with Aadhar No. and Bank account No.

(iii)                                    Convergence of three Social Security Schemes for unorganized workers on a single platform namely RSBY, AABY and IGNOAPS.

(iv)                                   Workers Facilitation Centre as Single point of contact for Social Security Scheme for Unorganized Workers.

(v)                                     Holistic monitoring of schemes for assessment of access to and quality of services to unorganized workers.

2.                  National Workers Vocational University:

(i)     Vocational stream is important for our economy.  Recent studies have shown that only around 18% of engineering graduates are employable due to lack of hands on practice.  People with strong skill background and strong knowledge background are the important drivers in areas like advanced design, testing, research and teaching/training.

(ii)   Present academic structure in our country lays great emphasis on class room learning which is not suitable for providing career pathways to vocational trained persons who acquire very significant experiential learning.

(iii) Therefore, in order to provide career pathways in vocational stream leading to higher qualifications, and also to develop proper research and develop infrastructure for vocational training, a national institute of higher learning has become absolutely necessary.

(iv) Germany has demonstrated the success of vocational training by attracting large number of its population to this stream.  It has several universities offering courses of higher learning which leverage experiential learning of skilled workforce.

(v)   Building upon the agreement in Indo-German cooperation, Ministry of Labour & Employment has constituted a Steering Committee under the chairpersonship of Secretary, Labour & Employment and with representatives from NSDA, Ministry of HRD, DEA, Planning Commission, Universities and expertise institutions and CII to evolve the objectives and other details of the proposed institution.

(vi) The Steering Committee has agreed that the Ministry of Labour & Employment should immediately take steps for setting up National Workers Vocational University in order to leverage experiential learning, provide pathways for upward mobility and to provide necessary framework and expertise in the areas of research and institutional development for vocational training.  The university would facilitate continuous learning by Indian workforce.  A Core Group is being set up to work out further details.

(vii)  Collaboration with industry would be a key feature of the structure of the proposed university.  Industry would be associated with its various activities.  The university would also have partnerships with other universities/institutions of higher learning and training institutions.  It is proposed that the university would have main campus at Hyderabad, Telengana with regional campuses at Ludhiana, Kolkata, Gujarat and Chennai.  Land/premises are already available at Ludhiana, Kolkata and Chennai.