New Delhi: In a big relief for India Inc the government has deferred implementation of labour codes beyond April 1. The Economic Times citing a senior labour ministry official mentioned in a report that implementation of labour codes has been deferred for some time as states have not yet finalised rules.
“implementation of labour codes looks unlikely from April 1. The government wants at least some industrial states to notify rules across four labour codes along with the Centre to avoid any legal void,” the publication quoted the official as saying.
The delay comes as a big relief for India Inc as it will give more time to companies to rework salary structure of employees and other policies related to human resource (HR). Certain provisions of the code would have led to increase in cost-to-company (CTC) of employees.
The report further mentioned that the labour ministry is ready with the rules on four codes and will notify them once some states are ready with rules in their domain. So far, only Jammu and Kashmir has notified rules for the codes while states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Uttarakhand and Madhya Pradesh have put up draft rules for two Codes while Karnataka has put it up for one Code.
Worth mentioning here is that the Parliament had in 2019 approved the Code on Wages and in September 2020 it approved Social Security Code, the Code on Industrial Relations and the Code on Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions. 29 labour codes have been amalgamated into four Codes to significantly reduce compliance burden and improve ease of doing business. The new Codes also aim to ease hiring and firing of workers and give more flexibility to employers in terms of work hours.