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Anjali Prayag

BANGALORE, July 29

KARNATAKA is all set to usher in a new era of labour reforms and a Bill, expected to be passed in the ongoing Assembly session, would say goodbye to the Inspector Raj in the State.

At present, any new business venture has to obtain certification from 5-6 six agencies in the State, such as the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board, Chief Inspector of Factories and Boilers, Commercial Tax Department, Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board and the Labour Department.

In the new format, the industries would need to submit a common format and need not furnish details separately. Even inspections would be conducted jointly.

According to Mr T.Y. Nayaz Ahmed, Principal Secretary, Labour, Karnataka Government, a team of inspectors would visit the industries on a random sampling basis. "It would be a computer-generated sample and the industries would be pre-notified on the period (but not the exact date) when they would be inspected. It would save time and is more convenient than the present system where each department's inspector visits the factory individually.''

When the new legislation comes into effect, all industries have to follow the self-declaration and self-certification rule. Mr Ahmed says, "This will not only create a sense of trust between the entrepreneurs and the Government, but will ease out the Inspector Raj which industries resent.''

He says even within the Labour Department, efforts are on to streamline the inspection system. For instance, the Department has two set of inspectors, one to inspect factories and the other to inspect boilers. "We are trying to have a single inspector for both as we can increase the coverage and remove doubling of effort towards the same job.''

The Department also plans to earmark certain level of officers to certain industries for inspection. "For instance, an inspector at a lower grade may be asked to take care of smaller industries while a higher grade officer would get a fairly large sized factory to inspect. This is again to avoid overlapping of effort,'' says Mr Ahmed.

Mr Ahmed rues that inspectors are the most dreaded visitors to a factory and are never seen as friends . "Unfortunately we have been given the authority to police and we have to do our jobs.'' he says.

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