Licence for shops, factories in Karnataka set to go online; common authority mooted

In an effort to streamline licensing for factories, shops and establishments, the Karnataka government has proposed an online system with a single authority to monitor approvals.

Until now, Karnataka had 29 different labour-related laws with different licensing authorities for each.

The government has now notified the draft of the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions (Karnataka) Rules, 2021, which will integrate all these legislations and bring them under one umbrella.

Speaking to DH, Labour Commissioner Akram Pasha said the government is now consolidating various labour laws. The system was complicated earlier as the government had to implement 29 laws. "From here on, a single authority will be defined for issuing licences and the entire process will go online to make it transparent," he said.

Earlier, the government had codified the various labour laws into four broad areas: wages, industrial relations, occupational safety and welfare. The Rules will help bring these codes into force.

Also, the labour department will henceforth conduct web-based inspections. Even with inspections, there used to be multiple authorities until now. For example, inspections were conducted separately by factories and boilers authorities and assistant labour commissioners. "It will now be electronically decided as to who should go for inspection where," Pasha added.

Karnataka Employers' Association president B C Prabhakar welcomed the move. "It is ease of doing business. The government is looking at taking the process online. This is a great relief for managements as the process will become transparent. Also, contractors had to earlier obtain different licences for each jurisdiction. Now, they can operate in the entire state with a single licence," he said, urging the government to ensure proper implementation.

The draft Rules cover a wide range of issues such as recruitment, safety in factories, maternity and leave benefits among others.

However, labour activists and trade unions are unhappy with these Rules. Advocate Maitreyi Krishnan, who has closely tracked the Codes and the draft Rules, said the draft Rules took forward the four labour codes that were brought into effect earlier, which are fundamentally anti-worker and need to be repealed, she said.

"These Rules will push lakhs of workers out of the organised labour force. For instance, the Occupational Safety code recognises establishments with 50 or more contract labourers, while the existing law has a threshold of 20 workers," Krishnan pointed out.

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