Page 739 - ES 2020-21_Volume-1-2 [28-01-21]

366 Economic Survey 2020-21 Volume 2

1955 the Motor Transport Workers Act, 1961, the Sales Promotion Employees (Conditions of
Service) Act, 1976, the Beedi & Cigar Workers (Conditions of Employment) Act, 1966 and the
Cine-workers and Cinema Theatre Workers (Regulation of Employment) Act, 1981. The salient
features of the Code include:
i. For electronic registration of establishments, uniform threshold of 10 employees has been
fixed. One registration for an establishment has been envisaged in place of 6 registrations
in the Acts. This will create a centralized database and promote ease of doing business.

ii. An enabling provision has been made that the Central Government can extend applicability
of this Code to any establishment, even if it has less than 10 employees, carrying out
hazardous or life threatening occupations.
iii. The Code rationalizes the compliance mechanism with one license, one registration and
one return for the establishments.

iv. The OSH Code expands the earlier definition of migrant worker given in the Inter-state
Migrant Worker Act, 1979. The present OSH Code includes those workers who would
be directly employed by the employer, besides by the contractor. Further, it has also
been made possible that a migrant, who comes on his own, in the destination state, can
declare himself a migrant worker by registering on an electronic portal on the basis of
self-declaration seeded with Aadhaar. The registration on portal has been made simple and
there is no requirement of any other document except Aadhaar.

v. One of the primary reasons for non-availability of data for migrant worker was that
the definition of inter-state migrant worker was restrictive. The Ministry of Labour &
Employment in this regard has also taken steps to develop a national database to enroll
unorganized workers including migrants, which will inter-alia help migrant workers get
jobs, map their skills and provide other social security benefits. It will also help in better
policy formulation for unorganized sector workers, in general.
vi. The migrant workers will also be able to enjoy the benefits of portability in respect of
ration and avail benefits from building & other construction cess fund.
vii. Employer to provide free of cost annual health check-up for employees above the specified
age working in certain type of establishments.

viii. Issue of appointment letter has been made mandatory for all employees, covered under the
Code which will promote formalization of employment.
ix. The Code envisages employment of women in all establishments covering all types
of works. Women are now entitled to work in the night, subject to their consent, with
provisions of safety, holidays, working hours or any other condition as prescribed by
appropriate Government. It promotes gender equality in a big way.
x. The ambit of definition of ‘working journalists’ and ‘cine worker’ have been modified to
include workers employed in electronic media and all forms of audio- visual production.

xi. The courts have been enjoined upon that a part of the penalty amount for contravention of
provisions relating to duties of employer leading to death or serious bodily injury to any
person may be given to the victim or the legal heirs of the victim.