labour, Registration and Employment Department Minister Raj Paliwar said on Saturday that the BJP government under leadership of Chief Minister Raghubar Das has changed face of employment and related rules, regulations and facilities to labourers in the State during a fortnight less than 1,000 days.
Calling streamlining labour laws one of the major successes in the State since 2015, Paliwar said that the government rescued over 452 children through special drives against child labour and penalized 228 employers meanwhile.
He said that as many as 23,016 fresh jobs were provided every year through Dattopant Thengdi Rojgar Mela organised at 72 different locations in the State during last three years. “The Mela remained extremely effective in naxal-infested regions, as it attracted unemployed youth who were close to be attracted towards Naxalism due to unemployment,” said Paliwar.
“We have been able to change entire face of employment in the State right from the day we took charge. Be it increasing Minimum Daily Wages from Rs 178 to Rs 210 added with accordingly changing Dearness Allowance (DA) in every six months, fixing Minimum Wages in sectors where it was not in practice earlier, bonus distribution of over Rs 260 Crores in total, getting those working in unorganized sectors registered and opening bank accounts of them which has mounted to 12.9 lakh by now, the government has tried its best to change otherwise miserable working conditions in State before December 28, 2014 when we assumed office,” added Paliwar.
The Minister said that Ease of Doing Business was one of the foremost achievements of the State in last 1,000 days where the Department was placed on top position for two consecutive years in entire country in comparison to 27th position which it used to hold until 2014.
“Nowhere in country, we are the first to take accidental death compensation claim to Rs 5 lakh for construction sector labourers in comparison to meager Rs 75,000 earlier. Similarly, we also increased compensation for same labourers to Rs one lakh from Rs 30,000 in case of normal death,” said the Minister where Department Secretary Amitabh Kaushal, other officials of the department and IPRD Director Ram lakhan Gupta were also present.
He also said that the government had been trying its best to upgrade existing ITIs, opening new ones, upgrading Employment Exchanges into model career counseling centres. “Most importantly, for the first time in Jharkhand, we have been successful in taking in principle approval from the Centre to provide 2,000 houses to Bidi sector labourers in the State. We have also identified land for a 100-bed state-of-the-art ESI hospital in Deoghar,” said Paliwar. He said that the government is doing a number of things to ameliorate the condition of the masses .