NEW LABOUR CODE: PUSH POWER, URBAN REFORMS NEXT

INDIA has the right to expect not a series of recommendations framed in the light of the existing crisis, but a considered programme for development of labour policy.

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Thus spoke the Royal Commission of Labour in India in 1931.

The piety was waylaid since independence. India got commissions, recommendations, and many laws-over 100 state and 40 central laws-for protecting workers' interests. The irony is embedded in data. Only 50 crore of the over 80 crore in the 15-64 age cohort are in the labour force, with barely one in 10 employed in the formal sector.

This week, the government took a significant step, unveiling four new codes for labour by rationalising 29 central laws. It cuts the number of rules from 1,436 to 351, filing of returns from 31 to one, and eases the pain of compliance. Much depends on the quality of the rules' framing, which is expected in the next 45 days for the system to be operational by April 2026.

The journey of the reform merits attention. In the 2017 Budget, Arun Jaitley announced, "Legislative reforms will be undertaken to simplify, rationalise, and amalgamate the existing labour laws into four codes." Although the amalgamation was completed by 2020, adoption by states was stranded between the babudom in Delhi and in state capitals, and electoral considerations over five years.