FILE: Mantralaya

MUMBAI: The state cabinet on Friday gave its nod to major reforms in the Central Apprentice Act to make in more industry friendly and in tune with today’s needs.

The act, which was formulated in 1961, has been amended by the state government to add some key features which will allow companies to take in more apprentices and has also provided safeguards for the apprentice as well as the company in case either one wants to leave before the prescribed duration is completed. All the Industrial Training Institutes (ITI’s) are government by the Apprentice Act, 1961, which makes it mandatory for them to ensure internships to their students beyond their course duration.

Under the 1961 act , a company can take apprentice not more than 2.5% to 10% of the total formal work force in the company. The government has increased the quota to 25% of the total workforce in the company. This will lead to more students finding jobs and also make it easy for the companies to expand their businesses in the state as they will no longer have restrictions.

“The reforms made to the central act are industry friendly and will allow more unemployed youth to find employment and also provide enough skilled hands to factories to expand their set up,” said Deepak Kapoor, Principal Secretary of Skill Development department.

Another change that has been made is to ensure that the companies don’t leave the students in lurch if they decide to scale down their business. The amendments make it compulsory for the company to give a student one month of stipend in case they are downsizing and laying him off before his actually completion date. Similarly, if an apprentice decides to discontinue for any reason, he will have to give up the salary for that month.

Under the new rules, the minimum hours of work that an apprentice has to put in has been reduced by eight hours currently to 4 hours . “Most of these freshly passed out students want time to work privately too alongside the apprenticeship and long hours didn’t allow for that,” said an official.

Kapoor said that a bill to amend the act will be introduced in the budget session and then it will be sent for the consent of the President to fulfil the requirements under the law.

Three main reforms made to the central apprentices act, 1961:

The quota with restricted number of apprentice that can be taken has been increased from 10% to 25%

The minimum prescribed hours to work has been reduced to 4 hours from 8 hours

Certificates for the course will be issued by the State Council for Vocational Training, rather than National Council for Vocational Training which takes a lot of time to process exam papers and come out with the results.

