According to TOI, The Assam government has proposed 10 labour law amendment bills. The amendment in the bills is related to private sector employees.
The purpose of the amendment presented by the Assam government is to promote “ease of doing business” and dilute the criminal penal provisions. The law amendment bills are as follows:-
- The tabled bills are The Minimum Wages (Assam Amendment) Bill, 2022.
- The Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Cess (Assam Amendment) Bill, 2022.
- The Plantations Labour (Assam Amendment) Bill, 2022.
- The Industrial Disputes (Assam Amendment) Bill, 2022.
- Kishan also tabled The Beedi and Cigar Workers (Conditions of Employment) (Assam Amendment) Bill, 2022.
- The Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) (Assam Amendment) Bill, 2022.
- The Inter-State Migrant Workmen (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Services) (Assam Amendment) Bill, 2022.
- The Equal Remuneration (Assam Amendment) Bill, 2022.
- The Building and Other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Condition of Service) (Assam Amendment) Bill, 2022.
- The Payment of Gratuity (Assam Amendment) Bill, 2022 was also introduced in the House.
Labour Welfare Minister Sanjay Kishan presented the bills in Assam Assembly and said, “The proposed amendments have been brought in to decriminalize all labour laws by bringing in civil penalties.”
“The rationale behind decriminalisation is that imprisonment is too severe a consequence for economic offences that do not involve mala-fide”, he added.
“The legal process around an offense involving imprisonment greatly increases the anxiety among employers and reduced possibility of such processes leads to improved ease of doing business”, he added.
“Criminal penalties, especially the risk of imprisonment, often unintentional offences, is a major reason for low business investment,” he further added.
In all the bills, the punitive measure of imprisonment has been removed. However, the amount of fine has been hiked by several times.
The idea of heavy fines will force employers to structurize internal organizational and operational mechanisms so that there are no lapses related to compliance.
