Factories Act: Centre firm on amendment

Panel opposed move to ‘lift’ threshold

The Central government will go ahead with its proposal to amend the Factories Act of 1948 by giving flexibility to State governments to enhance the threshold limit over which a unit will be considered a factory despite concerns flaked by a Parliamentary Standing Committee.

The proposal was discussed in a tripartite meeting chaired by Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya on Wednesday with representatives of trade unions, industries and state governments.

In 2014, the Centre had proposed changes to the Factories Act following requests from state governments to enhance the threshold limits for coverage under the law. At present, the Factories Act applies to establishments with 10 or more workers, if it the premise is using power and to establishments with 20 or more workers, without the aid of power.

A Parliamentary Standing Committee examining the proposed changes had, however, observed that “if the amendment is carried out more than 70 per cent of the factory establishments in the Country will be out of the coverage of the Factories Act and workers will be at the mercy of employers.”

The Ministry of Labour and Employment has not agreed to the observations of the Committee and has said in a note circulated to stakeholders that it has only given flexibility to state governments to fix the threshold limit and “all the factories including the one which employers a single worker may also be brought under the purview of the Act thus, in fact, increasing the total number of workers covered under the Act.”

The central trade unions unanimously opposed this move in the meeting held on Wednesday. “The size of factories in India has reduced dramatically from 100 workers 40 years ago to 10 workers due to increased automation. As a result, most factories in India have less than 40 workers. We demand the government to remove all threshold limits and apply the law to all factories irrespective of number of workers,” BMS President Saji Narayanan said.

However, the state governments will not be allowed to set the threshold limit for applicability of the factories law beyond 40 workers, as per the proposal of the Ministry of Labour and Employment.

The trade unions, including BMS, also opposed a proposal to allow entrepreneurs to give self-certified declaration on the safety, health and welfare standards of the factory to get approvals for setting up a factory.