by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group
Modi Govt.'s
Reforms go for a Toss
Irrespective
of the outcome of the Assembly polls in five states, the reform process
initiated by the Modi government itself during the past couple of years have
come to a grinding halt. While the Citizenship (Amendment) Act was passed in
2019 as the biggest ever reform, the rules are yet to be notified. Under the
act, Indian citizenship is to be granted to
persecuted minorities who are Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and
Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, and who entered India on
or before 31 December 2014. The Act does not mention Muslims. The Home Ministry
has sought 8th extension to make rules pertaining to
this historic Act. The National Register of Indian Citizens (NRC) has also been
put in the cold storage for the past four years. In the process, the first phase of Census
2021 was postponed due to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. The Covid is
behind but there are no signs of conducting Census in the country either. The
delay in Census will also push back the process delimitation exercise though
the Modi government is determined to undertake Census only after the 2024 Lok
Sabha polls. The Modi government has been unable to bring in any major
electoral reform either though it is showcasing Electoral Bonds as a major weapon
to eliminate black money in the polls. It's a different matter that recoveries
made by the Election Commission of huge cash and kind in the on-going Assembly
polls belies these claims. Until the other day PM Modi was telling the states
and political parties not to encourage the culture of freebies as it will harm
the economy. Now the BJP is in the fore-front of promising Revadis to woo the
voters in Assembly polls leaving the rivals far behind.
Labour Laws
on Back burner
The Modi
government brought the biggest ever reforms in the Labour sector heralding a
new era to accelerate industrial growth and bring a new work culture. The
labour codes were made by the Labour Ministry way back in 2019-20. It's nearly
four years but the labour codes have not been notified. The foreign investors
have developed cold feet in setting up industrial production in the absence of
these codes. The roll out of the four labour codes aimed at consolidating
a complex web of 29 central labour laws, has been pushed back indefinitely. All
trade unions including the RSS' affiliate BMS have termed these codes
anti-worker. The Code is relating to Wages, Industrial Relations,
Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions and Social Security.
Since labour
is primarily a state subject, some of the states have begun to reform their
legislation in a bid to boost economic growth to bring FDI in the manufacturing
sector. One of the key amendments is that industrial establishments
with 100 or more employees had to obtain government permission to lay off even
a single worker, whether permanently or temporarily, or to close business
units. However, the new Industrial Relations Code raises this threshold to 300
and allows states to set an even higher threshold than 300. The reforms
will also remove the existing ban on employing people on fixed-term
contracts.
Some of the
states like Assam, Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh,
Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh issued notifications to increase
the maximum daily work hours for workers in their state to 12 hours. However,
Rajasthan and UP subsequently withdrew their notifications. But Karnataka
brought in labour laws allowing 12-hour shifts in factories and night working
for women to bring in assembling of units pertaining to iPhones for Apple, such
as Foxconn, Pegatron, and Wistron. Now UP and TamilNadu are
likely to make similar changes. But the Centre has gone into a shell.
Data
Protection rules on a slow path
After a
prolonged battle, the Modi government was able to pass the Digital Personal
Data Protection (DPDP) Act. But clearing the rules of the most controversial
Act is an equally Herculean task and the same may not be passed during
Parliament's Winter session either. This is likely to further delay the
implementation of the law enacted. Though the rules are ready, the government
doesn't seem to be in a hurry to get the same passed. The government is toying
with the idea of seeking public opinion on these rules as most of the companies
are not ready to accept some of the provisions of the Act and want liberal
approach. It is learnt that major players in the industry want a two year
period to implement the DPDP rules after they are finalized.
The DPDP
affects almost every Indian using the mobile phone, email account or any other
form of the internet. There is a long process even after rules are notified as
a Data Protection Board will be set up. As India's first-ever dedicated
legislation for digital privacy, the DPDP Act provides broad principles of collection
and processing of personal information in digital form. The Act is stringent in
the sense that it prescribes monetary penalties of up to Rs 250 crore for each
instance of a data breach and blocking of entities in case of repeated
violations. The government is worried over the alarming rise in cases of data
leaks of Aadhaar, bank accounts and other details. The hackers have even broken
into the FaceBook account holders and made them vulnerable.
