1)Government eases India’s labour law compliance burden:

Registers mandatory for all establishments to maintain under nine central Acts to just five from 56.

2)Labour Ministry wants states to take lead in implementing workforce reforms in states lagging behind when centre is going ahead. Wage code introduction:

3) Now, get your PF claims within 5 days if applied online with Aadhaar

The mansoon session starting to day laws on wages code is  going to be passed.

Details:

1)Government eases India’s labour law compliance burden

With its labour reforms agenda, the government has pruned the number of registers mandatory for all establishments to maintain under nine central Acts to just five from 56.

Until now, establishments have had to maintain separate registers under different rules. As per a gazette notification , a combined register is provided which will facilitate the ease of compliance, maintenance and inspection and “also make information provided thereunder easily accessible to the public through electronic means”. The move would also increase transparency. “Simplification of registers/forms to be maintained & digitally kept under labour laws will lead to sharp reduction of cost & compliance burden,” tweeted NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant.

 “With the notification allowing electronic maintenance of these records, it has further enhanced the ease of maintenance and will increase transparency and support the drive towards the ease of doing business,” it said.

Employers can now maintain consolidated registers in place of the registers required under 9 national labour laws. These consolidated registers can be maintained either in hard-copy or electronically.

CONSOLIDATED REGISTERS The Ease of Compliance Rules prescribe the following consolidated registers that are to be maintained by employers:

1. Employee Register
2. Wage Register
3. Register of Loans and Recoveries
4. Attendance Register
5. Register of Rest/Leave/Leave Wages (to be maintained under the Mines Act, 1952, Sales Promotion Employees (Conditions of Service) Act, 1976 and Working Journalists and Other Newspaper Employees (Conditions of Service) and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1955).
6. New wages code:
7. The labour ministry had earlier sought a Cabinet approval for the new labour code on wages, a move which is seen as a first step towards labour reforms. "If the new bill is passed in the Parliament and becomes an Act, it will significantly improve the ease of doing business as well as ensure minimum wages to all workers," the minister said.
8. The Code on Wages Bill, which will ensure universal minimum wage for all industries and workers, has already been approved by the union finance minister Arun Jaitley-led inter-ministerial panel on labour. The Code on Wages Bill also seeks to empower the Centre to set a minimum wage across sectors, which the states will have to follow.
9. The minimum wage will be applicable to all classes of workers, which at present, is applicable to scheduled industries or establishments in the law. Under the Code on Wages, the labour ministry has chalked out plans to streamline the definition of wages by amalgamating four wage-related statutes. Employees now grapple withnearly half a dozen definitions of wages in various Acts across the Centre and states, Dattatreya said.
10. "We have decided to amalgamate 44 labour laws into four codes that include :

a)code on wages,

b)code on industrial relations,

c)code on social security, and

d)code on safety, health and working conditions,

According to Dattatreya, many states are non-committal towards labour reforms because of immense political pressure. "Political stability is a must to usher in labour reforms and only states with stable governments have been able to take the lead," he said, citing the examples of Rajasthan and Gujarat. 

3)Now, get your PF claims within 5 days if applied online with Aadhaar:

The process of online submission of claims for availing PF withdrawal benefits (Form-19), Pension (Form 10C) and PF Part Withdrawals (Form 31) does away with the employer’s intervention in the process.

Your provident fund claims will now be processed within 5 days if you apply online and have your Aadhaar number seeded with the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO). (to encourage Aadhaar seeding by members).

 No more  employer’s intervention in the process of claims.

For online submission of claims, members are required to complete e-KYC on the Unified Portal for submitting their claims through online mode and such claims will be available in the field office application software for processing without routing the same through their employers.

Thus, the claims on the member interface must satisfy the following conditions:

a)It should have an activated Universal Account Number (UAN)

b)Aadhaar should be seeded and verified

c)Bank details have to be seeded

d)OTP based e-KYC from UIDAI must be done by the member on the portal before submitting the claim