Mumbai, March 21 The Maharashtra Assembly on Friday passed the Bill to amend the Maharashtra Mathadi, Hamal and other Manual Workers (Regulation of Employment and Welfare) Act, 1969.
The Bill proposes to regulate the Mathadi, hamal and manual workers and remove fake and bogus Mathadi workers from works. The action will be taken against the Mathadi workers, who do not go to work, but continue to draw their salaries.
The Bill was moved by the Labour Minister Akash Phundkar.
The government has included the definition of the term “manual work” in the bill and also to substitute the definition of the term “unprotected worker".
“Manual work means any type of physical work carried out by humans without any help of support or assistance of any type of machines and includes manual loading, unloading, stacking, carrying, weighting and measuring work in scheduled employments,” reads the Bill.
The Bill proposes to set up the Advisory Committee to advise on matters arising out of the administration of the Act. It will consist of representatives of employers, workers, members of state legislature and members representing the state government.
The Bill also prohibits employment of the children below 18 years of age in any scheduled employment and therefore it has been proposed to increase the said age limit of child from 14 years to 18 years.
Further, the bill proposes to regulate the employment of unprotected manual workers employed in certain employments and to make provision for their adequate supply and proper and full unionisation in such employments.
The Bill proposes the establishment of Boards for full and proper utilisation of workers and thereby prevent avoidable unemployment.
Earlier, the Treasury Bench faced a major embarrassment after opposition members Nana Patole, Jayant Patil and Jitendra Awhad brought the presiding officer’s notice lack of quorum in the house and insisted that it was the responsibility to maintain quorum. Patil urged the presiding officer Yogesh Sagar to ring the bell for a necessary quorum. The presiding officer waited for more legislators to join.
However, after five minutes, the senior BJP minister Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil admitted that quorum is important to run the house but being Friday most of the legislators had gone to take their trains. He however, urged the opposition not to press for quorum but cooperate the government to pass the bill.
Another BJP minister Ashish Shelar also requested the opposition to help the government in the passage of the bill.
However, Awhad said that the ruling and opposition parties are two wheels of the cart but the ruling alliance is not giving due share to opposition in the functioning of the house which is unacceptable.
Patole said that the ruling alliance has been undermining the importance of opposition since the government formation as the opposition has been ridiculed and neglected. He further claimed that the ruling alliance gets weightage especially when the calling attention motions are accepted for debate.
Both Patole and Awhad insisted that the ruling alliance should give due importance to opposition in future. Ultimately, they accepted the request by the treasury bench and supported the passage of the bill.
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