Centre pursuing states to frame rules under all four Labour Codes: Rameswar Teli

The central government is pursuing with the state governments to frame the Rules under all four Labour Codes, the minister of state for labour and employment Rameswar Teli said on Monday in response to a question in the Lok Sabha.

The Code on Social Security, 2020, provides for social security benefits for all workers including in unorganized sectors as well as gig and platform workers while the Code on Wages, 2019 envisages that all workers whether in organised sector or unorganised sector will be entitled for minimum wages, he said.

“It, inter-alia, provides for fixation of minimum wages on time work basis for various wage periods, namely on hourly, daily or monthly basis,” he added.


According to minister Teli, “labour” is in the concurrent list of the Constitution and under the labour codes, rules are required to be framed by the central government as well as by the state governments.

“The central government has pre-published the Code on Social Security (Central) Rules, 2020 and the Code on Social Security (Employee’s Compensation) (Central) Rules, 2021 for public consultation,” he added.

Formal Job Losses
In a separate response, minister of state for labour and employment Rameswar Teli said that as per the payroll data based on Aadhar validated Universal Account Number (UAN) published by Employees Provident Fund Office (EPFO) every month for the organised sector, 77.08 net new subscribers were added to EPFO in 2020-21. This includes 97.83 lakh subscribers which exited from EPFO establishments while 89.43 lakh subscribers who had previously exited, rejoined EPFO establishments during the year 2020-21 and 85.49 lakh new subscribers joined EPFO establishments. “However, these exits may not necessarily be job losses due to Covid pandemic and or lockdown imposed as evident from addition of new and re-subscribed members,” the minister said.

Benefits under PMGKY
For the wage period from March, 2020 to August, 2020, the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojna has helped 2.63 lakh establishments by incentivising them to retain 38.91 lakhs low wage earning members of the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation, the minister of state for labour Rameswar Teli said in response to a question in Lok Sabha. “Benefits amounting to Rs 2567.19 crore were credited during the period,” he added.

The government had launched Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojna (PMGKY) for employers for prevention of disruption in employment of low wage earning EPF members, by way of payment of employee''s and employer''s share of EPF contributions (24% of wages) by the central government. The scheme covers all the establishments having up to 100 workers and 90% of such employees earning less than Rs 15,000 monthly wage.

e-Shram Portal
Minister of state for labour and employment Rameswar Teli informed the Lok Sabha that as on November 23, 8.97 crore unorganised workers have been registered on e-SHRAM portal which was launched in August this year and made available to the states/ UTs for the registration of unorganised workers. All eligible registered unorganised workers will get the benefit of an accidental insurance cover of Rs 2.0 lakh for a year free of cost through Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana (PMSBY). “One of the key objectives of the portal is to deliver the benefits of social security schemes of central and state governments through the e-Shram portal,” the minister said. The e-Sharam portal is a national database of the unorganised workers seeded with Aadhaar.