Despite the Opposition’s demand for sending the Apprentices (Amendment) Bill to a standing committee for further discussion, the Bill was passed by a voice vote in the Lok Sabha on the concluding day of the monsoon session on Thursday.
Opposition members initially wanted discussion on the Bill deferred to the next session. But the government pushed for a discussion and passage, citing the “importance” of the legislation. Labour Minister Narender Singh Tomar said the Bill affected a large number of workers and if passed in the current session, it would be implemented to offer better conditions to lakhs of workers.
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Saugata Roy (Trinamool Congress) accused the government of being in a “hurry” to pass a Bill that has significant ramifications for the labour sector. “It should be sent to a standing committee. Let’s discuss it there and then bring it in the next session,” he said. Pushing for more apprentices in the country, he said, “The percentage of skilled workers in India is just 6.7 per cent as compared to China’s 50 per cent.” Congress MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, also opposing the Bill, said there were certain clauses that did not safeguard workers’ interests. But the government managed to override the objections and said the Bill would help meet the growing requirement of skilled people which could rise to 23.75 lakh from the current 4.29 lakh.
In the Bill, new trades, including IT-enabled services, would be included in the scheme of apprenticeship and employers can formulate their own recruitment policies. The Union government would also be empowered to make rules with regard to qualification. .
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Even as the House was debating the Apprentice Bill, AIADMK’s Thanjavur MP, K. Parasuraman, read out his speech on the communal violence issue, which was scheduled for discussion later in the day.
As the AIADMK MP was reading out his speech in Tamil, some BJP MPs, listening to a Hindi translation, complained that the speech was not about the Bill being discussed. Deputy Speaker M. Thambidurai who was in the Chair, then asked the MP to read out the speech on the Apprentices (Amendment) Bill, but Mr. Parasuraman continued to speak on communal violence.
After he finished and the other AIADMK MPs pointed his error, Mr. Parasuraman realised he had read out the wrong speech.