The Ministry of Labour & Employment is administering over 40 Labour Laws. These laws are enforced by Central and State Enforcement agencies in their respective spheres. This mufti-faceted compliance system has been the point of criticism for the industry in general leading to severe compliance backlog.
In response to the requests from various stake-holders for simplification of formats, ease of compliance, transparency in inspections and speedy redressal of grievances, the Ministry of Labour & Employment is developing a single unified web portal for Online Registration of units, reporting of inspections, submissions of annual returns and redressal of grievances.
This portal will facilitate ease of reporting at one place for various Labour Laws, consolidated information of Labour Inspection and its enforcement. The Web Portal will enhance convenience of reporting, transparency in Labour Inspection and monitoring of Labour Inspections based on key performance indices and provide an effective Grievance Redressal System hyper-linked with Department of Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances (DARPG) portal.
As an initiative on pilot basis, the Ministry has selected the Chief Labour Commissioner (Central) organization, the Employees State Insurance Corporation (ESIC), Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) and Directorate General of Mines Safety (DGMS) covering 16 Labour Laws to start with. State compliances will be merged with this Unified Single Web Portal at a later point in time.
This integrated portal operates through a Unique Labour Identification Number (Shram Pehchan Sankhya) for each Employer/Establishment. The employers will be allotted LIN (Labour Identification Number) after registration on web portal. The enforcement agency will upload the data of inspection on the web portal which will be updated periodically.
This web portal is said to provide for:
- filing of single harmonised annual returns by the employers
- online reporting of harmonised inspection report by Labour Inspector/Inspecting Officers.
- online Grievance Redressal System.
The goal of this web portal is to contribute proactively to achieve the objective of simplifying business regulations and bringing in transparency and accountability in labour inspections. The website Shram Suvidha is now active.
While one needs to be a registered user to use the website generally, the website seems to be operative and contains a lot of information as well. Even start-ups and other organisations seeking to start operations in a new state, can visit the tab – Know Your Act which lists (depending on the nature of the establishment and place) all the laws applicable to an establishment.
Our beta test of this site shows that it may not be a comprehensive list. However, this is a start in the right direction.
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