Prime Minister of India - Dr. Manmohan Singh

PM's closing remarks at the meeting with Trade Union Leaders

"I thank you for attending this meeting today. You have been free and frank in expressing your views, concerns and opinions. The discussions have been informative. I have noted all the issues raised by you and I assure you that we will pay due attention to your concerns.

I would like to assure you that the welfare of our working classes is of great importance to our Government. You have raised the important issue of enforcement of Labour Laws and strengthening of enforcement machinery. These Laws are as much the Law of the land as any and they must be implemented. I will immediately write to all Chief Ministers for effective implementation of Labour Laws. I will also raise it in the next NDC meeting.

On some issues, we will take steps immediately for moving forward. There is the problem of backlog arrears of wages for PSUs. The pending wages amounting to Rs. 350 crores will be released well before Puja so that no worker is put to any hardship. There has been discussion on the ceiling for Bonus. I agree that the current ceilings were set more than a decade ago. We will soon consider this in the Cabinet and will take a favourable decision.

There have been some interesting suggestions on preferences to workers when chronically loss making PSUs are to be sold. We will examine these. There have been other suggestions such as the Workers' Capital Trust and on Contract Labour. These merit due consideration.

Many of you have mentioned about the nature of our price indices and whether there are any distortions that may have crept into them. I will have an Index Review Committee constituted as requested by you to look into this matter.

Some important issues have been raised regarding the welfare of agricultural workers and unorganized sector workers. The fact that we have draft proposals from many sources is a demonstration of the interest we are taking in the matter. I believe that there are many things possible for the welfare of our Labour. They include social security, health care and life insurance. We are examining the details of each of the components of a social security scheme. We are also looking at a framework whereby we can create the crores of jobs our country needs. At the moment, over 50% of our population is below 25 years of age and soon, over half of our unemployed will be educated unemployed. At the same time, we are having labour shortages in many sectors.

We need to generate jobs. We need to generate more incomes. We need better working conditions for labour. We need a better social security system. We need better Labour Law implementation. We will consider setting up a Working Group consisting of all stakeholders to suggest concrete ways of moving forward on all these issues in a short time frame.

I thank you once again for attending this meeting. I look forward to your views in future."