Interview-Labour Laws in India- Complex or Simple? Government of India is trying to reform existing labour laws in India. Government is trying to automate the processes. It will take some time for things to get settled and our government agencies to get use to it. Still, we believe it is moving to the right direction. We invited Mr Nanjegowda N who is currently associated with firstcry.com as Assistant Manager-HR, IR and Administration. Mr Nanjegowda is also one of moderator or Statutory Compliance sub forum. We wanted his views on existing labour laws and its complexity on ground level. Following are the insights of his interview: Q: How complex it is for you to handle compliances under labour laws as you are on ground level? I am a people manager so I have to work with at the ground level and simultaneously responsible for ensuring that company adhering to all statutory compliances under labour laws. It is difficult to manage and act due to frequent changes in statutory compliances and labour laws. Q: What kind of challenges you face in handling Statutory Compliances and Labour Law? Following are the challenges which we usually face: 1. Getting license for registration of new plants and more difficult to renew it. 2. Factories Act: Frequent changes in notification especially with respect to health & safety and employee welfare related schemes. 3. Minimum Wages: Splitting salary heads for the purpose of minimum wages. There is still a confusion whether minimum wage can be further break in other allowances or we need to keep minimum wage as Basic salary of employee. Frequent changes in PF and ESI ceiling also creates problem. Sudden notification makes difficult to adjust after doing all preparation of enrollments. 4. Gratuity Notification: Changes affect at the time of final settlement process of people. It becomes difficult to understand for employee whether he is eligible and on other hand how to adjust it as per current notification. 5. Contract Labour: It makes the situation difficult for principle employer as well as for contractor to fulfill the terms and condition as per the previous and current rules and regulation. 6. Re-announcements of laws: It is difficult to manage and act as per the law as government is in reform stage and trying to get all things automated. In first hand, we get the notification to maintain all details and documentation online. On other hand we have inspection for the evaluation of manual documentation. All these things make the situation more difficult to manage and handle. Q: Do you think that when people need facilities of PF and ESI, the respective departments are competent to provide them all the facilities? No, the departments are not that much competent. Companies are also liable for this. They also need to understand the needs of employee more than just following the statutory compliance and labour laws. We request our readers to share their views on this.

• published: 11 Aug 2015
• views: 45