Sucre Ethique - India : Maharashtra govt to protect labourers, end middlemen nexus

The Times of India - vendredi 30 avril 2010

MUMBAI : Maharashtra government’s gift for workers on International Labour Day and the golden jubilee of the state is a unique scheme which seeks to end shortchanging of labourers by middlemen.

The payment of wages to all labourers in the organised and unorganised sector who are in continuous employment and who have wages of more than Rs 3,000 per month will now have to be done through banks and cheques.

An estimated two crore contract workers, daily wage workers and all workers in continuous employment even in unorganised sector stand to benefit as they will get their full wages through their bank account. It will also help them establish continuity of employment.

The scheme was made possible through an amendement last week of the Minimum Wages Act, 1948, and the Payment of Wages Act, 1936. The Bill will be sent to the central government for its approval, after which it will be promulgated as amendment to the prevailing Act.

Even workers who are not in continuous employment and who do not have wages more than Rs 3,000 per month would be mandated to be paid through cheque or bank account in Thane district which will act as a pilot project, said labour secretary Kavita Gupta.

Once the pilot project is successful, this provision for workers not in continuous employment and having wages less than Rs 3,000 per month to be paid by bank account or through cheque will be implemented all over the state.

The state government had announced in the assembly that the Act will soon be extended to agricultural workers, sugar cane workers and domestic workers who have not been included in this provision.

In order to ensure smooth implementation of this provision, the government is putting a Labour Management System in place, in which the bank accounts of all the labourers will be opened. It has come out with a tender on a P-P-P model and the `total service provider’ would be tying up with banks to ensure the opening of a zero-balance account for all these labourers. They would be able to withdraw money from the infrastructure of `business correspondents’ which will be created by the banks within a radius of every work place of labourers in the state.

``The labourers will withdraw monies after their biometric authentication and this will prevent any possible frauds. Nearly 2 crore labourers would get financial inclusion in one go, which would be a giant leap forward for the welfare of the labourers,’’ Gupta said.