Expressing concerns over underpayment to contractual workers, delayed payments and low deposits to EPFO and ESIC, labour secretary Arti Ahuja has written to chief secretaries of all states and administrators of the union territories to incorporate certain statutory obligations in their contract to avoid exploitation of the workers, the ministry of labour and employment said on Wednesday.
Labour is in the concurrent list and the responsibility to implement the labour laws lies with the states, prompting the Centre to write to states and UTs on key issues flagged up from time to time
These include mandatory contribution of EPF and ESIC by the agencies in a timely manner and ensuring that the service provider or contractor pays wages to contract labour at rates not less than the minimum wages as notified by the appropriate government.
Further, the secretary has advised that the service provider or contractor shall not make any unauthorized deductions from the wages of the contract labour while ensuring that wages are paid to the contract labour on time.
“In case the service provider or contractor fails to pay the wages on time or makes short payment, the principal employer or buyer shall be liable to pay the wages to the contract labour directly and recover the amount from the service provider or contractor,” it said.
As per the statement, the service provider or the contractor shall be responsible for paying bonus to contract labour in the manner prescribed by the Payment of Bonus Act, 1965 and shall get reimbursed from the buyer and it will be their responsibility to ensure proportionate payment of gratuity to contract labour who have rendered continuous service as per the provisions of the Payment of Gratuity Act, 1972.The ministry of labour and employment has recently incorporated the above six statutory obligations on the Government e Marketing (GeM) portal in the contract of hiring manpower through outsourcing agencies in government in order to protect the interest of the contractual workers.