Shri Udairao Patwardhan, general secretary of BMS, in a strongly worded letter to Union Labour Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao has objected to the assurance by the Prime Minister to some industrialists that soon they could expect flexible labour laws and the move of the Textile Minister to have 12 hour shift in the industry. He also expressed concern over the ILC sessions getting scarce with every passing year and against delay in the bill on unorganised sector and no action on commitments in the 40th ILC. He particularly referred to the last ILC commitment of setting up a tripartite working committee to examine all the four draft bills and prepare a final draft bill for unorganised sector. ?Nothing has been done in the issue so far and it should be done forthwith,? the letter said. Shri Patwardhan also emphasised that the bill should cover all unorganised workers including home based, wager worker, migrant workers and self-employed workers whose monthly average earnings do not exceed Rs 6500/- per month. ?There should be a provision to have tripartite social security boards at the centre and the states to formulate or review the scheme while implementation could be entrusted to the state government, Panchayats or local bodies,? Shri Patwardhan said adding that the expenditure should be borne by the Central Government at least for five years. He also demanded early ILC meet to discuss all these issues.
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