Factories Act, 1948 revisions proposed
Q. Which of the following is/are true regarding the Factories Act 1948 and revisions proposed?
1) The present Factories Act is applicable to factories (with electricity connection) with 20 workers and factories, without electricity, with 10 workers.
2) The proposed law will apply to all factories that employ at least 40 workers.- Published on 22 Apr 16a. Only 1
b. Only 2
c. Both 1 and 2
d. Neither 1 nor 2
ANSWER: Only 2
- The Act applies to establishments with 10 or more workers, if the premise is using power and to establishments with 20 or more workers, without electricity connection.
- The Factories Act is a legislation that deals with safety, health and welfare of workers.
- All factories that manufacture or deals with hazardous substance and processes and dangerous operations will be covered under this Act even if they employ a single worker. The sectors that manufacture hazardous processes include coal, gas, iron and steel, petroleum, cement and leather.
- In a bid to promote start-ups, the government wants to speed up the process of setting up a factory.
- An employer’s proposal to treat different departments of his factory as separate companies will have to be approved or rejected in a month.
- Registration of factories will also be made online and entrepreneurs will only have to submit a self-certified declaration on the safety, health and welfare standards of the factory to get approvals for setting up a factory.
- The trade unions said this would allow more factories to stay out of the ambit of the Factories Act.
- The issue is that government have made factories with less than 40 workers out of purview of this Act. This will encourage factories to divide their department into separate factories.
- Apart from speeding up registration and compliance processes to help new entrepreneurs and start-ups, the proposed new Factories Act seeks to do away with the ‘inspector raj.’
