Senior academician Prof Prem Vrat has said that the ‘Make in India’ drive initiated by the Modi Government is a critical step forward in achieving manufacturing growth for prosperity. “The success of ‘Make in India’ drive would hugely depend on the degree of ease-of-doing-business in India. One of the biggest challenges to the enhancement of ease-of- doing-business is the growing emphasis on informal labour hiring,” said Vrat, Pro-Chancellor of Northcap University. The Founder Director of IIT Roorkee, Vrat, said that in a developing economy, like India, the labour-mix (formal-informal) employed in the manufacturing plays a significant role.
Talking further on issue of emphasis on labour in India, Vrat’s colleague Prof Ravindra Ojha said that the seven primary reasons which have encouraged the engagement of higher proportions of informal labour in Indian industries includes informal labour wage-share lower in comparison to the formal worker’s wages making it favourable to manage the intense global competitiveness; flexibility obtained to play with labour numbers to manage the rigidities of the labour laws; flexibility to manage high demand-market volatility; and increased flexibility in retrenchment.
Ojha cited as per the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), only18 per cent of the youths pass out of the vocational schools have regular jobs and 60 percent of these get employed as informal workers and regretted the fact that archaic labour laws in India regulate the industrial labour environment. Ojha is a world renowned specialist in Industrial Engineering and Management and currently holds as Director, School of Engineering and Technology, NorthCap University.