(a) the details of the registered unemployed men/women in various Employment Exchanges of the country, category-wise;
(b) the details of the employment provided during each of the last three years from such employment exchanges, State/UT-wise; and
(c) whether the Government is giving priority to women in the process and if so, the details thereof and if not, the reasons therefor?
MINISTER OF STATE (IC) FOR LABOUR AND EMPLOYMENT
(SHRI SANTOSH KUMAR GANGWAR)
(a) to (c): A statement is laid on the table of the House.
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STATEMENT REFERRED TO IN REPLY TO PARTS (a) TO (c) OF LOK SABHA STARRED QUESTION NO. *285 DUE FOR REPLY ON 09-12-2019 BY SHRI N. REDDEPPA AND SHRI PASUNOORI DAYAKAR REGARDING “EMPLOYMENT EXCHANGES’’
(a) & (b): As per the extant information received from the States/UTs, the number of job-seekers, all of whom may not necessarily be unemployed, registered on live register of employment exchanges in the country were 272.29 lakh male and 156.31 lakh female till Aug, 2017. The Scheduled Caste job seekers were 71.5 lakh, Scheduled Tribe job seekers were 25.5 lakh and Other Backward Class job seekers were 116.2 Lakh during 2016. The State/UT-wise number of job seekers placed through employment exchanges in the country is given at Annexure-I.
(c): Employment exchanges are being managed by the respective State Governments in the country, there are 5 employment exchanges which are exclusively for women.
The Government is giving priority to women by implementing various schemes/programmes to the extent available as follows:
Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005 stipulated that while providing employment, priority shall be given to women in such a way that at least one-third of the beneficiaries shall be women who have registered and requested for work under the Scheme. Further, under Pt. Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana, it is mandatory that one third of the persons covered should be women.
Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana (PMMY) has been initiated by Government inter alia for facilitating self-employment. Under PMMY collateral free loans upto Rs. 10 lakh, are extended to micro/small business enterprises and to individuals to enable them to setup or expand their business activities. Under PMMY, a special rebate of 0.25% is extended to women borrowers. Around 70% loans (12.74 crore out of total 18.26 crore sanctioned loan as on 31st March, 2019) given under the MUDRA scheme, have been given to women entrepreneurs.
Government is providing training to women workers through a network of Women Industrial Training Institutes, National Vocational Training Institutes and Regional Vocational Training Institutes.
Under Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana, special focus and provisions have been made for encouraging more women participation. In order to enable the newly skilled women to settle into their new jobs/vocations, post placement support is being provided at the rate of Rs. 1500/- per month for two months for within domicile and three months for outside the domicile placement.
Moreover, in order to encourage employment of women, a number of protective provisions have been incorporated in various labour laws for creating congenial work environment for women workers. These includes child care centers, time-off for feeding children, enhancement in paid maternity leave from 12 weeks to 26 weeks, provisions for mandatory crèche facility in the establishments having 50 or more employees, permitting women workers in the night shifts with adequate safety measures, etc. The Equal Remuneration Act, 1976 provides for payment of equal remuneration to men and women workers for same work or work of similar nature without any discrimination. Further, under the provisions of the Minimum Wages Act, 1948, the wages fixed by the appropriate Government are equally applicable to both male and female workers without any gender discrimination.
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