IT units allowed to deploy women in night

Order revalidating past exemption will be applicable to ESDM sector

The Information Technology (IT) and ITes (enabled services) units in the state can now operate with ease as the state government has accorded exemptions on the working hours for these sector specific companies, which is crucial to their operations.

A government notification to this effect has allowed the IT and ITes companies to deploy women in the night shift.

It may be noted, based on the provisions of the state Information & Communication Technology (ICT) policy-2004, the state Labour department had issued a notification in 2008 on the working hours for IT & ITes units allowing similar exemption initially for two years.

But with the validity of the notification expiring in October, 2010, the IT and ITes industries were facing tremendous problem in deploying the women employees in different time zones as per the need of the client companies located abroad.

The IT/ITes industry operates in a 24x7 model due to the time zone difference to meet the offshore customer's requirement.

The Labour department has now revalidated the defunct notification for an indefinite period.

The exemptions will remain in force till the present notification is revoked, sources said.

Apart from IT & ITes, the exemptions are applicable for the Electronic System Design and Manufacturing (ESDM) units, a focus sector of the state government.

"In exercise of the powers conferred by subsection (2) of section 3 of the Odisha Shops and Commercial Establishments Act, 1956 (Odisha Act 30 of 1956), the state government do hereby exempt the establishments such as information technology (IT) and ITes and Electronic System Design and Manufacturing Services from the purview of Section 9, 10, 11 and 23 of the said act", read the Labour & Employees' State Insurance notification.

While the Section 9, 10, and 11 of the Act deals with opening and closing hours of the establishment and interval for rest and spread-over of working hours of the employees, Section 23 disallowed deployment o women employees during night.

In the new notification, the companies have been allowed exemption from the working hours with the fulfilment of some conditions. It says that the exemption will not be applicable to employees of the concerned establishment, who are working on the piece-rated basis on written contract, signed between the employer and employees. Odisha's new ICT policy-2014 had promised grant of permission to the IT and ITes industry to work on the 24x7 model.