Budget 2024: New labour welfare and employment index planned, ease of doing business in focus

The government focuses on ease of doing business by developing a labour welfare and employment index to compare and promote labour law uniformity among states.

The government is developing a “Labour Welfare and Employment Index” (LWEI) to rank states and union territories on employment, labour welfare, social security coverage, and productivity, Financial Express wrote, citing unidentified official sources. This is to encourage “healthy competition” between the states and provide uniformity in the implementation of labour laws across states.

Labourers work for the extension of platforms 10 and 11 to accommodate 24-coach trains, at CSMT, during the 36-hour Mega Block by Central Railway on Saturday. (Bhushan Koyande/HT)

When is the plan for the index likely to be announced officially?

The plan is likely to be announced by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman during the budget speech on the fourth week of July.

This is similar to the labour rights index, an international qualification standard used as a tool to compare labour legislation around the world, considering 135 countries.

What has the government done to improve ease of doing business previously?

The government had previously taken steps to reduce the large number of labour laws, condensing as many as 44 labour acts into just four codes in the year 2019-20. These codes include Code on Social Security 2020; Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code 2020; Industrial Relations Code 2020; and Code on Wages 2019.

This was to improve the ease of doing business by reducing compliance needs and promoting decriminalisation.

The Union Budget is reportedly focusing on improving the ease of doing business this year, by decriminalising over 100 provisions across multiple laws, including the Income Tax Act, in the second edition of the Jan Vishwas Bill, Moneycontrol had reported, citing government sources.

The Jan Vishwas bill replaces criminal proceedings and imprisonment for minor offences, with monetary penalties, increasing the speed and efficiency of the justice system.

This is beneficial for many courts that are already overburdened with cases of minor offences, so that serious issues can be looked at quicker.