Commenting on the current controversial debate Moonlighting, the Union Minister of State for Electronics & IT and Skill Development, Shri Rajeev Chandrasekhar has said that this is the age of employee-entrepreneurs and the corporates/ companies must now understand that there has been a structural shift in the minds and attitudes of the young Indian tech workforce. He was addressing the 9th Annual Forum 2022 of the Public Affairs Forum of India (PAFI) on Friday.
Speaking about the issue of moonlighting-where employees work for more than one employer simultaneously, the Minister said the days when employees signed up with big tech majors and spent their lives on the job were long gone.
“Today’s youngsters have every sense of confidence and purpose about wanting to monetise, create more values put of his or her own skills. So, the efforts of companies that want to pin their employees down and say that you should not work on your own start-up are doomed to fail,” he said.
“Any captive models will fade. Employers expect employees to be entrepreneurial while serving them. The same people can apply it personally to themselves. Time will come where there will be a community of product builders who will divide their time on multiple projects. Just like lawyers or consultants do. This is the future of work,” he elaborating while agreeing that moonlighting should not be in violation of any contractual obligations.
Responding to a query on production linked incentive plan (PLI) announced by the Government in 2015, Shri Chandrasekhar said that India’s manufacturing sector was lying in a defunct state in 2014 when Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi took over.
“PM Shri Modi systematically built back the manufacturing sector with PLI and other programmes in the past 6-7 years so much so that the world today is looking at India, apart from Vietnam and Taiwan as a trusted source of technology. The reason why we feature in the name list is because of the visionary policies of the Prime Minister,” Shri Chandrasekhar pointed out.
About the Digital India Bill that will soon be referred for consultations with stakeholders, the Minister said that the Bill will be more architectural and address specific changes and disruptions in the technology space.
