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Rajya Sabha
Under its Resolution No.5(2)/2004-ICC dated 20 September 2004, the Government has set up the National Commission on Enterprises in the Unorganized/Informal Sector.
The aims and objectives of the Commission, as specified in its terms of reference under this Resolution, include:
Review of the status of unorganized/informal sector in India, including the nature of enterprises, their size, spread and scope, and magnitude of employment.
Identifying the constraints faced by small enterprises with regard to freedom of carrying out the enterprises, access to raw materials, finance, skills, entrepreneurship development, infrastructure, technology and markets and suggesting measures to provide institutional support and linkages to facilitate easy access to them.
Suggesting the legal and policy environment that should govern the informal/unorganized sector for growth, employment, exports and promotion.
Examining the range of existing programmes that relate to employment generation in the informal/unorganized sector and suggesting improvement for their redesign.
Identifying innovative legal and financing instruments to promote the growth of the informal sector.
Review of the existing arrangements for estimating employment and unemployment in the informal sector, and examining why the rate of growth in employment has stagnated in the 1990s.
Suggesting elements of an employment strategy focusing on the informal sector.
Review of Indian labour laws, consistent with labour rights, and with the requirements of expanding growth of industry and services, particularly in the informal sector, and improving productivity and competitiveness.
Review of the social security system available for labour in the informal sector, and making recommendations for expanding their coverage.
The terms of reference of the Commission noted above clarify that measures for (i) improvement in productivity of and (ii) accelerating generation of employment in the informal sector constitute important components of the recommendations that the Commission has been mandated to make in its report(s).
This information was given by Shri Mahabir Prasad, Minister of Small Scale Industries & Agro and Rural Industries in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha today.
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