Non-compliance of safety issues may lead to trade barriers: Labour secy

With safety provisions increasingly coming up for discussions in the Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), the Labour Secretary in an event today highlighted the imperative of maintaining high safety standards to avoid them being used as potential trade barriers by the partner nations.

"In the context of India’s rapid economic growth and its integration into global markets, it is crucial that we address safety and labour issues, as non-compliance could lead to non-tariff trade barriers, impeding our growth story," Labour Secretary Arti Ahuja said at the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) awards for excellence in safety systems.

The secretary also mentioned the use of software in Employees' State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) hospitals to detect and respond to occupational health issues as an example to illustrate the use of technology to detect health issues.

The software employed across 160 ESIC hospitals has enabled the mapping of patterns related to occupational diseases, a measure drawing from the data analysis strategies used during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Earlier, FICCI Secretary General Shailesh Kumar Pathak noted that business continuity is more important than cost-cutting and avoiding disruptions to business processes and announced that FICCI would work with the Ministry of Labour and Employment and the ESIC hospitals to identify the root cause of diseases and accidents and persuade FICCI.

“In addition, FICCI would seek to work with large corporations in training their entire ecosystem of vendors, contractors, and subcontractors so their business continuity does not get disrupted by safety issues,” he added.