Parliament on Friday cleared the Labour Laws (Exemption from Furnishing Returns and Maintaining Registers by Certain Establishments) (LLE) Amendment Bill, 2014, with the Lok Sabha giving its nod for the draft legislation that reduces small establishments’ obligations to file returns.
The Bill would have been cleared by voice vote but for Trinamool Congress member Suagata Roy insisting on a division on his amendment that sought to restrict the exemption on filing returns to those establishments that employed less than 25 people instead of the limit of 40 provided in the Bill. Mr. Roy’s amendment was defeated as the Opposition benches were practically empty while the government mustered the numbers to ensure the Bill sailed through the House where the BJP is in a majority.
Some Opposition members urged the government to factor in the recommendations made by a Parliamentary Standing Committee in 2011. Echoing trade unions’s views, the Committee recommended the number of employees be maintained at 19 or be increased to 25 at the most. The Government have neither any information regarding the number of persons working in these “small establishments,” nor are they aware as to whether all these establishments are regularly submitting their returns,” it noted.
The 2014 Bill stipulates “small” establishments would cover those employing between 10 and 40 workers as against 19 in the Principal Act, and increases the number of laws under which small establishments enjoy exemptions from nine to 16.
