Recent Developments

In order to improve compliance, catalyze job creation and ensure ease of doing business while safeguarding the health, safety, and social security of workers in both the organized and unorganized sectors, the Central and State Governments have initiated various labor reforms.

Some of the Central Government’s labor reforms are highlighted below:

Legislative Initiatives

• The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Act, 2016, provides for a complete ban on employment of children below 14 years in any occupation or process.
• The Ministry of Commerce and Industry issued the Special Economic Zones (5th Amendment) Rules, 2022 vide notification dated 8 December 2022 (SEZ Amendment Rules), under which certain permitted category of employees of establishments within SEZs (Units). These apply to employees of Units providing Information Technology (IT) and IT-enabled services, working from home or any place outside the SEZ, until 31 December 2023. Additionally, they also apply (subject to conditions) to employees of Units who are temporarily incapacitated, travelling, and working off site that are also permitted to work from home.
• The Ministry of Labor and Employment, vide press release dated 3 April 2023, announced that they have launched the e-Shram portal, a national database for unorganized workers between the age group of 16 (to 59interlinked with Aadhaar. The Ministry of Labor and Employment has taken several steps to increase registration on the e-Shram portal such as providing a multi-channel registration facility to unorganized workers across the country. The Common Services Center, which is a special purpose vehicle along with its more than 400,000 village level entrepreneurs have been on boarded to provide registration facilities at the village level. In addition, the e-Shram portal has been integrated with the Unified Mobile Application for New-age Governance (UMANG) mobile application to provide on-the-go registration and updation facilities to unorganized workers.

Governance Reforms

• The Ministry has notified “Ease of Compliance to maintain Registers under various Labour Laws Rules, 2017” on 21 February 2017, which has, in effect replaced the 56 Registers/Forms and 9 Central Labor Laws and Rules with 5 common Registers/Forms. This will save efforts, costs and lessen the compliance burden by various establishments.