Archaic labour laws affect special zones

the country may have woken up to the fact that if you can't beat them, join them, and set up its own special economic zones and export processing zones, but it still appears to be chained by its unwillingness to change labour laws amply. the promoters of these epzs are a worried lot these days and making noise that without a different set of labour laws for these epzs, it would be difficult for these epzs to function efficiently. what is also worrying for these promoters is that the demand for drastic changes in existing labour laws and having separate labour laws for these zones, comparable to the chinese and the middle-east ones, have been raised for some time now but to no avail. maharashtra, which became the first state to come up with a sez policy in april 2001, is yet to even get clearance from the centre in this regard, with another inter-ministerial committee meeting slated for tomorrow. a question to this effect had been raised under the banner of federation of indian export organisations (fieo) last year: if the nation which swears by marx can relax its labour laws, why can't we? they claimed that if it was not possible to carry out a radical overhaul of the country's archaic labour laws, steps should be taken to bring in a liberal policy at least in the case of sezs and epzs. though india too decided to follow the chinese shenzen model for setting up its sezs and epzs and declared them as 'foreign territories' for taxation purposes, it has decided to apply the law of the land as far as labour laws are concerned, a promoter of a leading epz told et. it is this thinking that has left many promoters worried, he added. it is necessary to treat these territories at least as public utility service, and should be provided with independent labour laws, adds another promoter of one of the epzs. their worst fear is unionisation of the labour within these zones which, they say, could kill the very concept of having free-trade. apart from hire-or-fire policy, what these promoters are seeking is waiver of provisions of the shops and establishments act for working time schedule, and factory act for matters pertaining to esi and provident fund of the workers employed in the sector. since 1991, successive government have tried, in vain, to liberalise the industrial disputes act which has become a sensitive issue in view of stiff political opposition. even recently, the government has come up with a package for increasing the voluntary retirement scheme payment from 15 days in a year to 45 days for every year as compensation. but, so far, it has not found much favour. the exporters, therefore, are seeking a totally separate law governing labour in the sezs and the epzs. their main contention is that china has become a dominant player in the international market mainly on account of its liberalised labour laws. there is no need to apprehend injustice to labour since india has strong laws and court rulings which check against victimisation of unionised workers, says another exporter. the need, instead, they feel, is due to major fluctuations in the international trade scenario which calls for shift in business from one product to other. with wto round the corner, time is most ripe to initiate the moves in this regard, or this experiment can again turn out to be another pipe-dream, they point out. the government appears interested only in making announcements but does not follow it up with concrete proposals, claims one of the leading traders of the country, adding that if this attitude continued, india's dream of doubling its share of world trade by 2005 would be unachievable even by 2050.

Archaic labour laws affect special zones

THE country may have woken up to the fact that “If you can’t beat them, join them”, and set up its own special economic zones and export processing zones, but it still appears to be chained by its unwillingness to change labour laws amply.

More from our Partners

Popular Categories

Hot on Web

In Case you missed it

Top Searched Companies

Latest News

Download ET APP

Follow us on

become a member