Nagpur: The state government on Monday tabled a bill to amend the Maharashtra Shops and Establishments (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 2017 to reduce the compliance burden for small businesses and providing greater operational flexibility while maintaining worker protection.
The bill has proposed mandatory registration for establishments with 20 or more workers instead of present 10 or more workers, establishments with less than 20 workers will now only need to submit a business intimation and not full registration required.
The maximum daily working hours will be 10 hours including rest intervals subject to a maximum of 48 hours per week instead of 9 hours per day (including rest intervals).
Quarterly overtime limit has been increased to 144 hours from 125 hours so that establishments will be allowed to engage workers in overtime for an increased period per quarter to address exceptional work pressure.
This is expected to increase workers’ earning potential and formalise overtime practices, ensuring that all additional hours are properly recorded and compensated which will help in preventing exploitation of workers.
However, the overtime working will not be mandatory for the workers. The daily spread over of work has been extended to a maximum of 12 hours per day from maximum 10.5 hours per day (span from start to end of duty including breaks.
In the case of women employees in night shift, the conditions for safety and security have been strengthened by subsequent Draft Rules, including mandatory pick-up/drop-off, well-lit workplaces, minimum two women workers on duty, and CCTV surveillance.
According to the bill, Maharashtra is India's most economically dynamic state which accommodates enormous industrial and service sectors employing large number of workers. It is an endeavour of the state to reduce compliance burden for small businesses for their economic growth while ensuring continued protection of workers under various laws.
The regulatory reforms in operational flexibility and reductions in compliance burden. Will eventually lead to economic growth of the state, said the bill.
"To align with the reform if regulations and procedures related to Ease of Doing Business and Ease of Living, it was considered necessary to reduce the compliance burden on smaller establishments. It was also considered necessary to provide operational flexibility of working hours without changing the fixed limit of weekly 48 hours of work," said the bill.
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