While the Manmohan Singh government’s Left-free second innings is expected to usher in changes to India’s archaic labour laws, the labour ministry is working on a quick-fix solution to help drop the country’s notorious ‘inspector raj’ tag.

If all goes to plan, India Inc would no longer have to deal with labour inspectors turning up at their premises to check compliance with 43 central and myriad state labour legislations. Instead, firms can submit a certificate from a company secretary that validates their compliance with the numerous employment laws.

“Currently, inspectors go on-site to verify compliance with labour laws. We are talking to the Institute of Companies Secretaries of India (ICSI) to permit company secretaries to file compliance reports for labour laws, just like they give compliance reports for other laws. Officials can then selectively pick up firms for inspections. So, the inspector raj per se will go down dramatically,” Union labour secretary Sudha Pillai said. To entrust the responsibility of submitting labour law compliance reports to companies secretaries, the ministry is working out the amendments required to the relevant laws. “We have discussed the idea with the Cabinet Secretariat and the government is enthusiastic about it. A Cabinet note to this effect will be submitted very quickly and we hope to get it cleared soon,” she said.

Company secretaries are now responsible for certifying a firm’s compliance with various statutes, including the Companies Act, 1956 and the listing agreement with stock exchanges. Recently, the Reserve Bank of India has mandated firms with multiple bankers and credit limits of over Rs 5 crore to get due diligence done by company secretaries.

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