Mandatory Hiring of Apprentices

The Apprentices Act, 1961 has been amended and brought into effect from 22.12.2014. Before the said amendment of the Act, there was no provision to mandate establishments to hire at least 50 per cent of their apprentices for regular employment. After amendment, the Act provides every employer shall formulate its own policy for recruiting any apprentice who has completed the period of apprenticeship training in his establishment.

Several suggestions/ recommendations were received from Office of the Prime Minister’s National Council on Skill Development (PM’s NCSD), Central Apprenticeship Council (CAC), National Commission on Labour (NCL), Indian Labour Conference (ILC), Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and National Skill Development Agency (NSDA) and other stakeholders to make changes in the Apprentices Act, 1961. These were discussed in an Inter-Ministerial Group(IMG) having representatives from Ministry of Railways, Ministry of Micro Small Medium Enterprises, Ministry of Power, Ministry of Defence, Planning Commission, NSDA. The recommendations of IMG were discussed in the CAC-a tri-partite statutory body and simultaneously, these recommendations were also posted on web-site for inviting the comments of public at large. The amendments were carried out after considering suggestions from different stakeholders.

This was stated by Shri Bandaru Dattatreya, the Minister of State(IC) for Labour and Employment in response to a written question in Lok Sabha today.

***

AT