Mathur Ritika Passi

forces people to take up employment in the
informal sector, but also hampers overall
employment generation in the organised
sector. 18
India is governed by over 40 Central and
100 state laws. Multiplicity on this account
causes major operational hurdles. For
instance, most of these laws use different
terminologies—employee, workman,
worker are used to denote labour, and
wages, basic wages, salary when referring
to compensation. To be able to meet the
SDG 8 target of fully complying with
ILO labour standards, the following
reform measures, amongst others, need
to be implemented: Moving the subject
of labour to the State List; consolidating
laws pertaining to employment, wages,
welfare and social security; instituting a
uniform definition of terms like ‘industry’
and ‘worker’; establishing a single Labour
Authority that would deal with all aspect
of labour; and creating a more streamlined
approach to dispute settlement. 19
The current government has been making
attempts to reform India’s labour laws.
The labour ministry has been attempting
to merge the Industrial Disputes Act,
Industrial Employment (Standing Orders)
Act and the Trade Unions Act into a single
code for industrial relations, along with
bringing about several other changes, such
as allowing factories that employ fewer
than 300 workers to lay off employees
without approval (currently, the limit is 100
employees). However, the government has
had limited success, given that it has been
unable to get the backing of labour activists
and opposition parties.
Developing Skills and Capacities
Not only do one million people per month
join the Indian job market, India also has
the largest youth population in the world. 20
Such a demographic characteristic means
that the country must look to provide
adequate skills to its young population,
so that it can be employed in highly
productive activities. In this context, target
8.6 looks to build upon the MDG agenda
of universal access to primary education, by
incorporating indicators such as secondary
completion rates and tertiary enrolment
rates.
India has made significant strides in
getting its children enrolled in schools,
but challenges remain (see Chapter
6). The gross enrolment ratio for
One million people are added to the
job market every month in India
Sewing Machine/Neha Singh/Flickr/Creative Commons
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