Tribune News Service
New Delhi, July 3
The Union Cabinet approved the Code on Wages Bill and a proposed legislation that aims at regulating surrogacy in India at a meeting on Wednesday.
The Code on Wages Bill will enable the Centre to fix minimum wages for the entire country. It is one of four codes that would subsume 44 labour laws with certain amendments to improve the ease of doing business and attract investment for spurring growth. The four codes will deal with wages, social security, industrial safety and welfare, and industrial relations.
"Cabinet approved bill on Wage Code," Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar said after the Cabinet meeting here.
The government will likely push for having the Bill passed in the ongoing session of Parliament.
The previous Modi government had introduced the Wages Code Bill in the Lok Sabha on August 10, 2017. The bill was referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee, which submitted its report on December 18, 2018.
The Bill, however, lapsed after the 16th Lok Sabha was dissolved in May.
The Code on Wages will replace the Payment of Wages Act, 1936, Minimum Wages Act, 1948, Payment of Bonus Act, 1965, and the Equal Remuneration Act, 1976.
The Bill provides that the central government will fix minimum wages for certain sectors, including railways and mines, while the states would be free to set minimum wages for other category of employments.
The code also provides for setting up of a national minimum wage. The central government can set a separate minimum wage for different regions or states.
The draft law also says that the minimum wage would be revised every five years.
Earlier in June, Labour Minister Santosh Gangwar had said that his ministry would push for the passage of the bill in the June-July session of Parliament.
The union cabinet also approved the Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2019, paving the way for its introduction in the ongoing session of Parliament. The Bill prohibits commercial surrogacy and limits the service to relatives of an infertile couple for altruistic purposes.
The Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2019 proposes to regulate surrogacy in India by establishing a National Surrogacy Board at the central level and State Surrogacy Boards and appropriate authorities in the state and Union Territories, official sources said.
"The proposed legislation will ensure effective regulation of surrogacy, prohibit commercial surrogacy and allow ethical surrogacy to the needy infertile Indian couples.
"While commercial surrogacy will be prohibited, including sale and purchase of human embryo and gametes, ethical surrogacy to the needy infertile couples will be allowed on fulfillment of stipulated conditions. It will also prohibit exploitation of surrogate mothers and children born through surrogacy," an official said.
The law was previously introduced in Parliament on November 21, 2016. That version of the Bill banned commercial surrogacy, and restricted surrogacy to Indian citizens only. The Bill also not only limited the provision to married couples—thereby excluding several criteria of people, such homosexual and live-in couples as well as single people who want to have a child that way—but also said that couples with children—either biological or adopted —could not opt for surrogacy.
Lok Sabha passed that Bill in December last year, but it was still pending in Rajya Sabha when parliament was dissolved before General Elections. With PTI
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