Oscar Fernandes,68 MoS (Independent Charge),Labour and Employment

While he won over trade union leaders,he did little to hard-sell the forward-looking initiatives his ministry envisaged with unions and worse,his Cabinet colleagues.

His brief

The CMP recognised that archaic labour laws need to change,a hurdle in India achieving its chosen destiny.

The Deliveries

Extended unemployment insurance benefits for a year to laid-off workers covered by the Employees State Insurance Corporation.

Reforms Derailed

Was not pushy enough to get the Cabinet to clear some of his ministry’s well-meaning initiatives,including India’s first-ever National Employment Policy,Mines Act amendments to improve workers safety,amendments to bring firms hiring 10 to 19 persons under the coverage of Employees Provident Fund Organisation.

Reforms Scuttled

In May 2004,the EPFO was close to finishing a comprehensive modernisation project initiated by the NDA,but Fernandes asked Siemens,which was implementing it,to pack up.

Opportunities blown

• Didn’t push equity investments by EPFO despite clear instructions from the PM. As a result,Indian workers lost out while the worlds pension funds cashed in on the bull run on Dalal Street.

• PM entrusted Rajya Sabha member Arjun Sengupta to come up with a reform blueprint for labour laws in 2005. Though his ministry sent umpteen reminders to Sengupta,Fernandes never intervenedso no blueprint yet.

What was he thinking?

“Managements have to see this as a warning,” he said,when an Italian MNCs CEO was murdered by workers.

High point

Broke SBI’s monopoly in investing EPFO money by roping in private sector managers,but made the move controversial by sneaking in a player at the last minute.

View from the shadow

The economic crisis has made it clear that arrangements were not made for rehabilitation of people who lost their jobs.

Satyanarayan Jatiya,former labour minister

Did he get your vote?

He is a Rajya Sabha member.