|
Government of India has set up a four Member National Commission on Enterprises in the Unorganized/Informal Sector under the Chairmanship of Dr. Arjun Sengupta in the rank of Cabinet Minister. The Commission will function both as an advisory body and a watchdog for the informal sector.
The terms of reference of the Commission are as follows :
Review of the status of unorganized/informal sector in India including the nature of enterprises, their size, spread and scope, and magnitude of employment;
Identify constraints faced by small enterprises with regard to freedom of carrying out the enterprise, access to raw materials, finance, skills, entrepreneurship development, infrastructure, technology and markets and suggest measures to provide institutional support and linkages to facilitate easy access to them;
Suggest the legal and policy environment that should govern the informal/unorganized sector for growth, employment, exports and promotion;
Examine the range of existing programmes that relate to employment generation in the informal/unorganized sector and suggest improvement for their redesign;
Identify innovative legal and financing instruments to promote the growth of the informal sector;
Review the existing arrangements for estimating employment and unemployment in the informal sector, and examine why the rate of growth in employment has stagnated in the 1990s;
Suggest elements of an employment strategy focussing on the informal sector;
Review 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; and
Review the social security system available for labour in the informal sector, and make recommendations for expanding their coverage.
The term of the Commission will be for a period of one year. The Commission will recommend measures for the improvement in the productivity of these enterprises, generation of large scale employment opportunities on a sustainable basis, particularly in the rural areas, enhancement the competitiveness of the sector in the emerging global environment, linkage of the sector with institutional framework in areas such as credit, raw material, infrastructure, technology up gradation and marketing and formulation of suitable arrangements for skill development.
|
