Labour ministry guidelines say workers returning to cities must get housing, health insurance, facemasks. The Centre has also asked states to issue guidelines to employers to take care of the needs of migrant workers.
The remaining 0.35 per cent will be credited in December this year, if the EPFO is able to redeem its equity investments.
The focus of the meeting will be on enabling businesses and households to avail of the revival framework on the basis of viability, necessary steps like finalising bank policies and identifying borrowers, and discussing issues that require addressing for smooth and speedy implementation.
The current wage revision for PSBs, as well as some private lenders, is due from November 2017 for five years - up to October 2022.
'We have already sanctioned loans worth over Rs 3,000 crore to around 120,000 customers.'
Apart from Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, where none of the estimated 6.7 million construction workers got cash transfer benefits, the coverage of the construction workers was the lowest in Delhi, where only about 5 per cent of the estimated workers received cash under the PMGKY, followed by Kerala and Uttar Pradesh (22 per cent), among major states. In India, construction workers belong to the unorganised sector but account for the highest share of non-farm jobs after manufacturing.
However, despite the surge, the average income of banking correspondents has taken a beating due to the low value of transactions.
Like everything else, the structure of banks may change, and banks may depend more on digital technologies and artificial intelligence for dealing with both their customers and employees.
The company stated that it was taking steps for cost rationalisation across all businesses to maintain liquidity and due to a prolonged slowdown it had to take a few tough measures.
The Centre has advised banks to make a 20 per cent reduction in expenditure related to non-core business activities, along with deferring "avoidable expenditure" on "purchase of staff cars", "refurbishment of guest houses" and on the interior decoration of administrative and back offices.
Industry fears waiver of interest on interest would distort credit culture, may encourage borrowers who can pay to defer repayment.
'A proposal to do away with labour laws is not feasible.' 'That's why we wanted to have a dialogue with the states.'
Following suggestion from Minister for Roads Nitin Gadkari, Centre seeks ideas from IRDAI and General Insurance Council on feasibility of providing insurance cover for retrenchment.
Unlike other health insurance policies, which mostly covers hospitalisation expenses alone, the specialised cover is likely to include the cost of treatment during quarantine and payment of cash for incidental expenses.
Retaining the GST rate assumes importance since states are under pressure to increase their revenues, hit hard by lockdown. Also, the Centre has not fully compensated states for their revenue losses on account of GST for 2019-20.
For states like West Bengal, Bihar, Odisha, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh, where migration is high, the return of workers could be as much an opportunity as a liability. All states have launched portals to register migrant workers; additional fields like nature of employment and remuneration in the past 2-3 years are being added to help in skill mapping.
'States have done a tremendous job of identifying health facilities for COVID-19 care and equipping them well.'
ILO acts upon a plea by 10 central trade unions objecting to the ordinances proposed to temporarily scrap labour laws in Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat, along with executive orders issued by at least 10 states to increase the daily working limit to 12 hours from eight hours, along with other labour law changes.
Labour law changes for three years may not be enough as it takes a couple of years for factories to build and operations at a proper scale start only in the third or fourth year.
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