Center working towards Employment Security

Hyderabad, May 21 (INN): The G20 Labour Ministers' Conference has lauded the initiatives of Modi Government's Labour and Employment policies, said Union Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya.

Addressing a press conference here on Sunday, the Union Minister said that he attended the G20 Labour Ministers conference held from 17th to 19th May in Germany. Disclosing the highlights of the conference, he said several programmes taken by the Labour Ministry were providing guidance to the G20 member states.

"The Labour and Employment Ministry at the Centre is marching ahead with the principle of providing employment security, social security and wage security to the working people. The abolition of Child Labour, Pradhan Mantri Rojgar Protsahan Yojana, increasing the Maternity Leave to 26 weeks for women working in the organised sector are some of the major achievements of the government," Dattatreya said.

He said that he had bilateral talks with UK, Argentina, Russia, Saudi Arabia labour ministers regarding the Unorganised sector workers and their security related issues. He revealed that he held discussions with the Labour Minister of Germany as well. Germany evinced interest in collaborating with India in training youth with the motto of learning, earning and employment. Several other countries also showed interest in entering Memorandum of Understanding with India, the Minister said. Some countries are keen about the Indian EPFO investments in Exchange Traded Funds, he added. Sri Dattatreya opined that the G20 targets would yield the desired results by 2030.

Technological Advancement, Acquiring the needed Skills and Going Digital can come handy in encountering problems the employees faced while in the 2008 Financial Turmoil, the conference, opined Dattatreya. "In the era of Digital World, importance of Skill Development is much more. The government is considering expansion of digitisation in a big way in Telangana State, especially in Warangal, Zaheerabad, Ramagundam and in the surrounding areas of Hyderabad. The government is of the view that the technical skills of the Engineering Graduates should be enhanced," he said.

Dattatreya assured that he would take up the hardships of the migrated employees in Gulf countries with the External Affairs Minister. In this context, he said that workers from Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Punjab largely migrated to Gulf States.

He congratulated Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley for speeding up the process of implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST). He said that consensus on the rates of 83 per cent of goods is a good sign. Though due to the GST the revenues would be less temporarily, the new tax regime would be beneficial in the long run, he said.