Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Aug 7: A delegation CII J&K State Council called on Labour Commissioner J&K, Dr Abdul Rashid and apprised him of the concerns of the Industry regarding labour and Employees Provident Fund (EPF).
Led by Chairman of the CII J&K State Council, Rahul Sahai, the members during meeting with Dr Abdul Rashid, apprised him of the concerns of industry with regards to Labour and EPF. He mentioned that due to seasonal distribution of products across different cities in our State, it is highly difficult for employers to manage same labour across different seasons. As labour migrates from different regions of J&K, employer finds it difficult to maintain their EPF accounts due to their short-term availability. Also due to the ongoing crisis in the Kashmir valley, there is a lot of fluctuation in the demand of certain products which directly affects the production abilities of an industry, so EPF act may have a clause of making EPF contribution an optional depending upon constraints as same labor is not available during different seasons.
The EPF Act is applicable in more than 28 States across India wherein, it states that EPF is applicable only to those commercial establishments and industries that have employee strength of more than 19 and above. In J&K, this act is called as J&K EPF Act and is applicable to the commercial establishments and industries having employee strength of more than nine and above.
CII recommended that for J&K, it should be either optional for the industrial employees or should be applicable to the industrial units employing more than 20 employees.
Dr Rashid listened to the concerns raised by CII members and assured that the issues raised by the members shall also be discussed and taken up with the higher authorities. He briefed the delegation that steps have been taken for drafting four Labour Codes and Ministry of Labour and Employment has prepared a preliminary draft on Labour Code on Social Security 2017 by simplifying, amalgamating and rationalizing the relevant provisions of the existing Labour Laws and placed the provisions of the Code on Social Security 2017 are under consideration.
Rajesh Sharma, MA Alim, SK Bansal and Vivek Bhardwaj were also present during discussion.
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