After modifying and amending the state Factory Rules, the state government is all set to revise the labour laws within the state. The core team set up by the government to oversee the factory rules will be handling the process of streamlining the labour laws in the state as well. This move is aimed at strengthening the labour laws, while making the whole process more simple and less cumbersome for the industry.

In this matter the Goa Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (GPMA) is set to meet Chief Minister, Manohar Parrikar, and the labour commissioner soon to deliberate over the changes to be made in the labour laws of the state. The association has already submitted their suggestions to the government, to be incorporated in the revised rules earlier this month, which is aimed at aiding the state government in streamlining the labour laws as per the needs and requirements of the industry.

It is understood that this meeting will be a curtain raiser to discuss over the recommendations put forth by the pharma industry, which is highly depended on availability of skilled and affordable labour. An industry friendly, more reliable, and paper less labour environment had been a long standing demand of the industry, and all this specifics have been raised by the industry, informed Suresh Kamath, president of the GPMA.

He further elaborated that since accessibility of cheap workforce, particularly an educated one is becoming a growing challenge for the industry, it is the right time to take decisive action in this direction.

“This is to ensure that lack of the same does not affect the investment decisions in future, as labour issue is one of the biggest challenges that any industry has to face. One of our biggest demand is to ensure that the labour process become more user friendly by adopting and using IT, since the paper work is both time consuming and unreliable. We strongly feel that use of IT can help companies improve their efficiency, documentation process, etc. for all critical operations. Thus, we are positive that all our concerns will be duly heard by the government as a lot of our investment and growth opportunity is at stake on this aspect,” pointed out Kamath, who is also part of the core committee set up by the government.