Secretary Dawra bets on regional workshops to convince Bengal, remaining states on labour codes

Sumita Dawra, secretary, ministry of labour and employment

The Central government will embark on a series of regional workshops to sensitise stakeholders, including states on the proposed labour codes as it looks to build consensus around this reform, said Sumita Dawra, secretary, ministry of labour and employment.

“We have planned a series of regional workshops where all the states will come together to discuss the rules. Our concern is that there are discrepancies between the central framework and the pre-published rules by some state governments. There should be uniformity of compliances for businesses across the states. To ensure this, we will examine at our end, but we want more discussions so that we have a common view on where the gaps are,” Dawra said.

She is confident that the Centre will be able to convince all states, even a reluctant West Bengal to implement these codes in their jurisdictions.

“West Bengal is the only state that on June 20 said they will not do it (implement the labour codes). We have explained to them that this will be very good for labour welfare and also for attracting investments. I specifically requested the officer from West Bengal to give the correct picture to his seniors,” Dawra added.

Dawra is referring to a meeting she chaired of labour secretaries and labour commissioners of all states on June 20 that took stock of their rules and suggested steps to align them better with the rules framed by the Centre.

“We had a very good interaction with all the state governments on June 20. There is a capacity issue with some of the states and Union territories and we are coordinating with them. We also told them that their state schemes will not be disturbed by the codes and we will give the legal position on this in writing,” the secretary told Moneycontrol in an interview on August 9.

In a bid to improve ease of doing business, the government had consolidated 29 central labour laws into four labour codes. These are the Code on Wages, 2019, the Industrial Relations (IR) Code, 2020, the Code on Social Security (SS Code), 2020 and the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions (OSH&WC) Code, 2020.

Though cleared by the parliament, the proposed labour codes have been pending since 2020 and is now said to be part of the 100-day agenda of the government.

The secretary said most states have brought out draft rules under the new labour codes, with about 30 of them entirely on board with the reform-agenda.

“All parties need to move together and we feel that this kind of a sustained dialogue is how we will drive consensus and a common understanding (on the labour codes). And we feel that the regional workshops will give us more clarity,” Dawra said.