United we expand, divided none grows

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday urged trade unions and business leaders to create an environment in which both the government and the private sector are encouraged to invest.

“To promote new employment we need an environment in which both the government and the private sector are encouraged to invest. There is much that trade unions and business leaders can do to help us create such an environment,” Mr Singh said in his inaugural address at the 41st session of the Indian Labour Conference.

“I sincerely believe that if we can provide an environment in which investors feel confident enough to invest, we will be able to generate more gainful employment and promote also workers’ welfare,” he said.

While drawing on the experience of China, which had done well in both industrial modernisation and management of technical change, Mr Singh hinted at a word of caution, pointing out that change should not be borne unduly by the working class.
“It is our solemn duty to protect the interests of workers and of all those seeking work even as we manage processes of social and economic change. It is, therefore, necessary to evolve mechanisms to smoothen the effects of processes of technological change,” he said.

Mr Singh said the real challenge before the government was to increase the skilled workforce from about 5% at present to about 50%, a norm in many developed countries.

“To make our working people employable we must create adequate infrastructure for skilled training and certification and for imparting training, industrial training institutes, therefore, must keep pace with the technological demands of modern industry and the expanding universe of technical knowledge,” the PM said.

Reminding the audience that the country had a large working population, Mr Singh said the challenge was to turn people from social liabilities to economic and social assets if they had to be gainfully employed.

“Investment in their capabilities, in workers’ education and training and investment in labour intensive manufacturing are necessary to promote growth of employment and also to promote workers’ welfare,” he added.

The PM also gave away Shram Awards at the function, attended by labour minister Oscar Fernandes, heavy industries and public enterprises minister Santosh Mohan Deb and representatives of trade unions and industry.