Date:04/02/2006 URL: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2006/02/04/stories/2006020400571900.htm

Back Central advisory board to study contract labour issues

Our Bureau

Mumbai , Feb. 3

THE Central Advisory Contract Labour Board (CACLB) plans to conduct a sector and region-wise study on contract labour-related issues in the country, Dr S. Balakrishnam Raju, Chairman of CACLB, has said.

Contract labour was being employed across several segments of industry, banking sector and government, he observed. While contract labour cannot be abolished, since people may have been working with a company for more than 10 years, he said the CACLB advises managements to ensure that the contract labourers get paid their minimum wages.Though outsourcing is the key in the info-tech segment, he said it does not come under the purview of the CACLB as workers there are viewed as executive employees and not contract labourers.

He said the board was keen on doing a study looking at the contract-labour related issues in different sectors in terms of the existing problems, whether laws are implemented and whether minimum wages are paid etc. However, he did not give a time frame within which the study would be completed and suggestions made to the Central government.

While the CACLB's suggestions are not binding on the management of companies, he said its suggestions to the Central Government would be the basis of any amendment that may be brought in the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1971.

He said the Andhra Pradesh Government had already amended its law to include contract labour in sectors such as security agencies etc.