The government is holding consultations with the industry, as it prepares to issue guidelines over the implementation of the newly announced internship scheme under the Budget for FY25, presented on July 23, official sources said.
For providing internships to about 10 million youth over the next five years, the government is likely to select top 500-companies on the basis of market capitalisation, sources said.
“The objective is to get individuals trained at the top companies, so that afterwards, they may find jobs in these or other companies,” an official said. “Skilling is necessary, and it is currently lacking…the Budget aims to address the issue through the internship programme.”
Essentially, if 10 million youth are to be given internships in 500 companies, each company would have to accommodate 20,000 interns over five years, or 4,000 interns per year.
Many experts and academicians say this is a high number for these companies. “Many of them already run internships with technical/management institutions, and this could be viewed as additional compliance,” TN Krishnan, professor, IIM Kozhikode said.
Meanwhile, on the implementation of labour codes, official sources said that the labour ministry is currently holding consultations with labour unions, to examine whether there is a need to relook at the provisions.
“So far, consultations with two unions have taken place…eight more are remaining,” said a source. “The timeline of the enforcement can’t be given for now.”
The implementation of the four labour codes, passed by the Parliament in 2019-2020, has been due for a long time and the Centre is keen to push all states to finalise the draft rules for smooth and uniform implementation across the country.
In June, the union labour ministry asked the states and union territories to review their draft rules with respect to the framework established by the codes, and seek support if needed to expedite pre-publication of rules.
The Narendra Modi government in 2019-20 had undertaken a plethora of facilitative reforms to reduce the multiplicity of labour laws. As many as 44 labour related acts were consolidated into four codes with the objective of reinforcing trade and investment, facilitating ease of doing business and reducing compliances, addressing the issue of decriminalisation, addressing skill development needs, and dispute resolution.
The four codes are: Code on Social Security 2020; Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code 2020; Industrial Relations Code 2020; and Code on Wages 2019.
Moreover, sources said that the labour ministry is working on the definition of a “gig worker” as it aims to provide targeted-policy support, and social security coverage to these workers.
On Monday, Labour Minister Mansukh Mandaviya had said that the government wants to reduce the unemployment further to below 3% in the near future, while adding that “there is no cause of concern” about job losses in the country. Currently the unemployment rate stands at 3.2%, which is much lower than 6% in 2017-18, Mandaviya said.