Two Cong CMs want SEZ law on Gujarat model, CMP in the way

This may be one reason why the Congress is finding it hard to formulate a response to the Narendra Modi win...

This may be one reason why the Congress is finding it hard to formulate a response to the Narendra Modi win — even his staunch critics accept there are several policy measures in Gujarat worth emulating.

In fact, two Congress chief ministers Andhra Pradesh’s Y S R Reddy and Maharashtra CM Vilasrao Deshmukh have approached the Centre to let them adopt a law modeled on Gujarat’s Special Economic Zone Act 2004 that came before the Central SEZ Act 2005. But they have run into the Common Minimum Programme — drafted with the Left — that doesn’t allow such flexibility on labour.

Last month, Reddy even wrote to Minister of State with independent charge of Labour and Employment Oscar Fernandes asking that his Ministry give the green signal to the state’s SEZ law. When asked, Fernandes said, “The AP government has written to us and the matter is being processed.”

Reddy and Deshmukh have reason to push for Modi’s version: while the Centre’s SEZ Act makes no exceptions to prevailing labour laws of the land, Gujarat’s Act is more liberal in this regard. And Maharashtra and Andhra are competing with Gujarat when it comes to inviting SEZ offers.

Not only does it transfer the powers of the state Labour Commissioner to the SEZ Development Commissioner to provide a single-window service to investors, it also declares all the units and other establishments within the SEZ as “public utility service” as per the 1947 Industrial Disputes Act. This prevents workers from going on a flash strike.

The Gujarat Act also allows units to file their compliance returns for seven major labour laws in one consolidated report.

Interestingly, a similar move proposed by the Union Labour Ministry to help small and medium firms file their compliance of 16 labour laws in a unified format electronically was scuttled by the Left time and again in the last two years.

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When Prime Minister Manmohan Singh raised concerns about India’s “rigid” labour laws being a hurdle in the country’s growth, he hinted that states have to take the lead in pushing reforms on their own.