The Union Government is committed to the safety, health and welfare of the working class, said the Minister of State (Independent charge) for Labour and Employment, Bandaru Dattatreya. He was speaking at a function after presenting National Safety Council’s ‘NSCI Safety Awards’ for the year 2016 in New Delhi today. Altogether 70 organisations have been awarded in four categories – Sarva Shreshtha Suraksha Puraskar, Shreshtha Suraksha Puraskar, Suraksha Puraskar and Prashansa Patra. Besides, 12 client organizations from Construction Sector have also been awarded. In Manufacturing Sector, IOCL- Digboi Refinery; National Fertilizers Ltd., Panipat and NPCIL, Kaiga Generating Station 3 & 4, Kaiga, Karnataka under Group A, Group B and Group C respectively; in Construction Sector, L&T Ltd., Rawatbhata, Chittorgarh for NPCIL Atomic Power Project, Rajasthan and Godrej & Boyce Mfg. Co. Ltd. and in MSME Sector, Electricals & Electronics, Thane, Maharashtra have won Sarva Shreshtha Suraksha Puraskar for the year 2016 .
Shri Bandaru Dattatyeya said that as a part of legislative reforms of labour laws, the Centre has started a process of codification and amalgamation of 44 Central Labour Laws into four Codes in order to simplify them. They are: Code on Wages, Code on Industrial Relations, Code on Social security & Welfare, and Code on Safety & working conditions. He said that as a founder member of the International Labour Organization India has contributed immensely in formulation and implementation of labour standards. So far India has ratified 45 Conventions and 1 protocol of ILO. The Government declared the National Policy on Occupational Safety, Health and Environment at Workplace in the year 2009, Since then a number of developments have taken place in national as well as international arena in the field of science and technology, trade and commerce, economy and environment. Therefore, to review the National Policy an Inter-Ministerial Committee has been constituted.Congratulating the winners of the Safety awards Shri Bandaru Dattatreya said that none of the winners had a fatal accident during the 3-year assessment period while 41 of them did not have a single reportable accident. National Fertilizers Ltd. Panipat achieved 49.67 million accident-free man-hours spread over 11 years and 5 months which is an impressive achievement.