GOM decision on contract labour on Aug 13

NEW DELHI: The Group of Ministers on Labour headed by Planning Commission Deputy Chairman K C Pant on Wednesday deferred a decision on amendments to the cotentious Contract Labour Act and will meet again on August 13.
Though Labour Minister Sahib Singh Verma and Small-scale Industries Minister C P Thakur were present, Law Minister Arun Jaitley could not attend the GOM due to his preoccupation in Parliament, sources said.
Disinvestment Minister Arun Shourie, the other member of the GOM, also could not make it to the meeting, which could not take a decision yesterday due to the absence of three ministers -- Jaitley, Shourie and Thakur.
Amendments to Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970 had been hanging fire for the last few years and the GOM had met at least thrice to sort out the thorny issues including retrenchment compensation, fixation of over-time allowance, fixation of wages either on weekly or monthly basis at the rate of Rs 120 per day.
Verma is believed to have asked the GOM to include the contract labourers under ''Universal Health Insurance Scheme'', launched by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
The industry, especially the small-scale sector, had been asking for an early resolve on the contract labour issues as it could provide them flexibility to hire and fire depending on their business, to which trade unions had expressed their displeasure.