Three months after it proposed to ease norms for closure of factories, the Maharashtra government is now planning to revise its proposal to make it easier for factory owners with less than 150 employees to close down, instead of the 300 employees as proposed earlier. The government said it would also include a clause to protect labourers’ rights during factory closure. Citing growing automation in industries, factory-owners have been seeking an easing of norms to close down their units. Currently, as per the Industrial Disputes Act, any unit that employs 100 or more people has to seek government permission before it can shut down. Following representations from factory owners, the Maharashtra Labour department had earlier proposed to increase that number to 300 — implying that factories with 299 or fewer staff members can close down without approaching the government for permissions. “We are planning to allow factories with fewer than 150 employees to close down without government permission, instead of those with 300 employees as proposed earlier. But we plan to introduce a provision in the law to ensure that the labourers’ rights are protected,” state Labour Minister Sambhaji Patil Nilangekar told The Indian Express. He added that the issue of contract labourers is also being examined, to see if they can be considered at par with permanent labourers at the time of factories’ closure. “We will form a team headed by the labour commissioner to study how contract labourers working throughout the year can be considered for benefits at the time of factory closure,” added the minister. Currently, despite their large numbers, contract labourers in factories are not considered for any severance pay at the time of closure. Sources in the government said that its move of increasing the employee limit to 150, from the current 100 employees, could help attract investment to the state. The state government’s move to tweak its proposal comes after the RSS-affiliated labour union, the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), met the labour minister on Wednesday on several labour issues including the issue of contract labourers’ inclusion in factory closure norms. “The contract labourers in factories are in large numbers. And they are not considered at the time of closure which is an injustice. In any factory, there are at least 70 per cent contract labourers and their rights are not protected and they are kept out of many benefits. We have demanded that the government include the contract labourers in the definition of Industrial Disputes Act so that they will be counted as labourers at the time of factories seeking closure permissions from the government,” said Anil Dhumane, general secretary of the BMS. Earlier this month, the labour unions affiliated with the Communist Party of India (Marxist), Congress, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Shiv Sena passed a resolution after a state-level meeting demanding that the state government should mandate that factories with even 50 employees will have to seek government permission before closure.
