Plan panel takes on govt over 50% private jobs quota

Country’s top advisory body, the Planning Commission, has taken a strong objection to the government diluting its own proposal for mandatory 50% reservation in private sector jobs to apprentices, Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Nov 23, 2012, 01:36:23 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Country’s top advisory body, the Planning Commission, has taken a strong objection to the government diluting its own proposal for mandatory 50% reservation in private sector jobs to apprentices.

The ministry of labour had proposed that an amendment in the Apprenticeship Act of 1961 to insert a new provision making absorption of at least 50% of apprentices as employees.

It also said preference would be given in the employment to those apprentices who have been trained by a particular industry when job opportunities open up in that particular industry or firm.

The provision was proposed to give fillip to the National Skill Development Mission, which aims to provide train 15 crore youth by 2020 with the help of industry by 2020.

“The proposal would have ensured jobs for those trained under the mission,” a senior government official said.

The government had found that despite training for a specific sector the trainees were not getting jobs in that sector thereby making the skill development scheme less attractive.

The industry was not willing to accept the change in law which invites punishment for violations saying it would curb their freedom to hire and fire employees. The industry instead wanted the government to prescribe a voluntary policy in this regard.

The labour ministry obliged and changed the mandatory provision to a voluntary one by saying that 'preference may be given' to apprentices in jobs. The ministry cited implementation problem as a reason for making the change.

Plan panel deputy chairperson Montek Singh Ahluwalia this week expressed his anguish at the dilution.

“The proposed provision on giving preferences may not serve the actual purpose and in fact would defeat proposed amendment in the Act,” Ahluwalia said at a meeting of National Skill Development Coordination Board.

After Ahulwalia’s objections, the ministry has left the final decision on the amendment to a Committee of Secretaries.

“A note for consideration of Committee of Secretaries has been prepared and sent to the Cabinet Secretariat,” an official said.

The 50-year-old law is being overhauled on the recommendations of a task force appointed at behest of the Prime Minister's National Council on Skill Development in 2009. The changes were proposed to make corporate India more enthusiastic about well-trained apprentices.

However, other amendments into the law provide for restricting imprisonment only to 'proven' willful defaulters in serious violations.

Another change also provide for Central government having implementing authority in case a company hired employees in more than four states.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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