(Counterview: More than five years after Parliament approved them, India’s four labour codes are now in force from 21 November. The Codes on Wages, Social Security, Industrial Relations, and Occupational Safety & Health replace 29 laws, which has been lauded by several experts, and criticised by others. Read the view by Rejimon Kuttappan here.)
To understand the significance of the new, sweepingly simplified set of labour codes notified by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government this month, you may want to take a walk around the Noida industrial area, as I often do.
Contrary to Opposition parties and staunch labour-loving critics who speak of widespread unemployment and labour problems, I see posters or signboards at every 100 metres, offering jobs for a wide range of high-skilled, semi-skilled, light-skilled or barely skilled workers. From truck loaders to Uber drivers, from telecallers to embroidery experts and digital marketers.
To see this as a sign of “Viksit Bharat" would be grossly wrong, but to dismiss the new reality as a crisis of unemployment would be equally so.
The new labour codes are essentially an exercise in progressive pragmatism that reflects this reality to balance the pressing needs of low-wage workers on the one hand and the growth hunger of small and medium businesses on the other.