Press Information Bureau
Government of India
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Ministry of Labour & Employment
Minister of State for Labour & Employment Shri Harish Rawat attended the ongoing 99th Session of the International Labour Conference of ILO at Geneva
New Delhi: June 11, 2010
The Minister of State for Labour & Employment Shri Harish Rawat attended the ongoing 99th Session of International Labour Conference from 3-7 June at Geneva, Switzerland. There was an intervention from the Minister on the subject of "General Survey Concerning Employment Instruments", which is third item on the agenda. The member States of the ILO meet annually at the International Labour Conference, held in Geneva, Switzerland. Each Member State is represented by a delegation consisting of two government delegates, an employer delegate, a worker delegate and their respective advisers.
For 2010, the agenda includes:
- Decent work for domestic workers (first year of a standard-setting committee)
- HIV/AIDS in the world of work (second and final year of a standard-setting committee)
- A general discussion on the strategic objective of employment
- A review of the follow-up to the 1998 Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work
In his intervention, the Minister focused on the following items:
(i) Employment generation is an integral part of growth process. Development strategies focus on accelerating growth in employment as well as ensuring proper wages. Eleventh Five Year Plan aims at creating 58 million job opportunities. The focus is on productive employment at a faster pace in order to raise the income of rural masses so as to bring about a general improvement in their living conditions.
(ii) The Minister focused on various employment generation schemes started by the Government of India, e.g. Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme that guarantees wage employment to people at an unprecedented scale in rural areas. Government of India is also implementing various employment generation programmes, such as Swarna Jyanti Shahri Rozgar Yojna (SJSRY), Prime Minister's Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP) and Swarna Jyanti Gram Swarozgar Yojna (SGSY). For the benefit of the workers in the unorganized sector, Government has enacted "Unorganised Workers' Social Security Act in 2008. The Act, inter alia, provides for the formulation of suitable welfare schemes targeting improvement in education and skill development for the worker's in informal sector.
(iii) On supply side, he mentioned that several steps like skill development, modernization of employment exchanges, change in Apprenticeship Act to make it demand driven and effective occupational health and safety national policy are being taken to make the labour and its working conditions more productive, decent and market oriented.
(iv) Shri Rawat mentioned that National Employment Services functions within the conceptual framework of ILO Convention No.88. India has a network of 969 Employment Exchanges which have acquired eminence due to their widening role in Employment Market Information Programme, assistance in self-employment, vocational guidance and counselling services. To make effective use of IT in various activities of employment services in the country, employment exchanges have been identified as one of the Mission Mode Projects under National e-Governance Plan. The Eleventh Five Year Plan, from 2007 to 2012, aims to establish a National Skill Inventory and National Database for Skill Deficiency Mapping on a National Web Portal for exchange of information between employers and employment seekers.
(v) He mentioned that the Cooperative Sector in India has emerged as one of the largest in the world with more than 0.53 million societies of various types with membership of more than 229 millions. In order to provide greater functional autonomy to cooperatives, the Multi-State Cooperatives Act was enacted by India in 2002. Apart from this, Government of India is taking measures for skill development of cooperative which is noted in Para 497 of the ILO Report.
(vi) He mentioned that India believes in social dialogue. All important policy decisions are preceded by tripartite consultations. As noted in Para 90 of the ILO Report, the issue of global economic crisis and its implication were deliberated in detail in the recently concluded 42nd Session of Indian Labour Conference, the apex National level tripartite body in India.
(vii) The Minister also emphasized that the ILO Global Jobs Pact provides an effective framework to deal with the current economic crisis and contains important guiding principles for crisis responses. Therefore, there is no need for new standards setting, as proposed in Para 806 of the ILO Report. However, Government of India support the second option as mentioned in Para 807 of the Report.
Shri Rawat concluded by complimenting ILO for keeping focus on employment in these difficult trying times and thus rendering invaluable service to the working masses all over the world.
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Palash Biswas
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