Labour laws are to be amended by Rajasthan
Rajasthan is trying to amend its labour laws. They want to grant factories the right to close without the state permission if they employ fewer than 300 persons. This amendment is awaiting the President’s approval and Rajasthan feels that this will reduce the hassles for the small businessmen to an extent.
Under Article 254(2), if a state law runs counter to the central law, it can be allowed to pass as long as it gets the President’s assent. The state has already passed a highways Act that has no provision for a social impact assessment (SIA) unlike the Centre’s Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (LARR) Act.
This amendment is also awaiting the President’s assent and one of the exceptions this allows is highways. In the state’s land acquisition Bill, public comments to the draft are open till August 26. This bill proposes to do away with SIAs altogether.
The preamble to the Bill makes this clear when it says the purpose is ‘to provide for, and expedite the process of, land acquisition for public purposes. The land acquisition bill was passed during the UPA regime which made the consent from the land owners mandatory for the infrastructure projects. However after it was passed in the legislation, the states started facing problems as the availability of land for infrastructure projects became scarce and the projects were stalled due to the scarcity of land. Then all the state governments started demanding amendments in the bill and Rajasthan is also one of them.
Source- The Financial Express
Infrastructure projects, land acquisition, Land Acquisition Bill, Rehabilitation and Resettlement, social impact assessment, UPA regime
