Dattatreya hopeful of passage of bills on Child Labour, Bonus

Hyderabad: Union Minister of State for Labour Bandaru Dattatreya on Tuesday expressed hope that two bills related to child labour prohibition and bonus would be amended in the coming winter session of the Parliament.

“Two bills...One is Child Labour (Regulation and Prohibition) Act. Already, it is introduced in the Rajya Sabha. I hope it will be passed in this session. The second one is, I have already completed the process with the (Union) Cabinet (for approval), amendment of the Bonus Act,” Dattatreya said here.

Four other bills -- Code on Wages, Code on Industrial Relations, EPF (amendment) Act and ESIC (amendment) Act -- are in the pipeline and they are yet to be approved by the Union Cabinet, he said.

Tripartite consultation meetings on the Code on Wages and Code on Industrial Relations are over and they have been sent for vetting by the law department, he said.

The NDA government has begun efforts to amalgamate 44 laws into four codes wages, industrial relations, social security and working conditions.

Replying to a query on fixing EPFO interest rates against the backdrop of banks reducing rates of interest, he said the equity investment made by the EPFO would give higher returns in the long run.

The interest rates may come down. But ours is a long term investment. In long term investment, the result may not come in a beneficial way in the beginning. In the long term, it will be definitely beneficial.

That is the report given by our consultancy also, he said. The EPFO has allowed investment to the tune of about Rs 5,000 crore to Rs 6,000 crore, about five per cent, through equity participation, he said.

The investment move would be reviewed by March, 2016, he added.
Source: PTI