Labour reforms unveiled by the government on Thursday will make it easier to do business in India and boost global investor sentiment by easing compliance burden and ushering in transparency, according to Indian industry.
The reforms aimed at eliminating ‘Inspector Raj’ will create a conducive environment for growth of businesses as they can look forward to simpler procedures and provide a huge fillip to manufacturing, industry bodies said.
“We welcome the Labour Ministry’s initiative of launching the ‘Shram Suvidha Portal’ to facilitate a single window for compliance of labour laws,” CII Director General Chandrajit Banerjee said.
“Simplification of procedures has been a long standing concern of industry and this initiative will considerably ease the burden of compliances especially for small & medium enterprises (SME) sector,” he added.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday unveiled a string of labour reforms, including measures to end ‘Inspector Raj’, asserting that ease of doing business is “essential” to ensure the ‘Make-in-India’ campaign is successful.
He dedicated a number of schemes under Shramev Jayate (work alone triumphs) programme which includes portability through universal account number for employee provident fund, single window portal to enable doing business with labour ministry and labour inspection scheme in central sphere.
PHD Chamber President Sharad Jaipuria termed “Shramev Jayate” a success mantra that would not only create millions of job opportunities but also facilitate in reaping the demographic dividend and enhance ease of doing business.
“Shramev Jayate would be critical to enhance growth of manufacturing sector and its value added to the GDP. It will facilitate the firms to deploy desired workforce in their manufacturing units vis-is softening procedural compliance,” he said.
Exporters’ body FIEO said: “Filing single tax return to comply with 16 labour laws, provision for single window, self certification, and computerised random selection of units for inspection will add to the ease of doing business which is a basic requisite both for domestic manufacturers and foreign investors.”
While so far the units for inspection were selected locally without any objective criteria, the new scheme envisages that serious matters will be covered under the mandatory inspection list.
Assocham Secretary General D.S. Rawat said: “The simplification of procedures and introduction of a unified web portal to ensure compliance with labour laws is a welcome move which will avoid harassment at the hands of inspectors.”
“The universal PF account number to the employees satisfies their long standing demand and enables quick transfer as well viewing their account statement anywhere anytime.”
