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Journalism of Courage
The governments ambitious plan to set up mega manufacturing zones across the country is all set to be rolled out but with a significant dilution of its proposal to allow flexible labour laws.
The Committee of Secretaries has accepted our position that existing labour laws and workers rights should not be compromised in any way, labour and employment secretary Prabhat Chaturvedi said,adding that all issues raised by the ministry on the National Manufacturing and Investment Zones (NMIZ) have now been addressed.
Doing away with the earlier proposal to have more flexible labour laws,including easier hire-and-fire policies,the government has now decided that all existing labour laws will be applicable to the NMIZs and workers would also be given faster relief and higher compensation in case a unit shuts down.
With this,all issues relating to the proposed manufacturing policy has now been addressed and the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion,which is spearheading the policy,is now expected to seek Cabinet approval over the next few weeks.
Apart from the labour ministry,the ministry of environment and forests also had opposed the manufacturing policy because of its proposal to enable faster environmental clearances to units in such zones. But late last month,commerce and industry ministry Anand Sharma had held successful discussions with environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan to iron out the differences.
While Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had given an in-principle approval to the national manufacturing policy in June,he had called for setting up a Committee of Secretaries to sort out differences between the ministries of environment,labour and finance and the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP).
Meanwhile,in a major boost to the policy,the department of revenue in the finance ministry has also agreed to provide exemption from capital gains tax to equity investments in the manufacturing zones.
