Cost of apprenticeship right works out to be Rs 20K cr: Praveen Chakravarty

The current law, the Apprentices Act of 1961, mandates organisations of a certain size to take apprentices in the range of 2.5-15 per cent of their workforce, said Chakravarty

Praveen Chakravarty, chairperson of the All India Professionals’ Congress and key member of the Congress’ manifesto drafting committee, in an interview with Archis Mohan and Indivjal Dhasmana in New Delhi, discusses various draft promises, such as the right of apprenticeship, security for gig workers, and fund for startups, that may be part of the Congress’ manifesto. Edited excerpts:

 How is the Congress’ poll promise of an apprenticeship law different from the Apprentices Act, 1961?

The current law, the Apprentices Act of 1961, mandates organisations of a certain size to take apprentices in the range of 2.5-15 per cent of their workforce. As many as 44,000 enterprises have participated in the apprenticeship programme. Our proposal is to completely revamp it by replacing the current Act with the one that gives the right to apprenticeship. The right to apprenticeship means that anyone below the age of 25 years with a diploma or other qualifications can demand an apprenticeship with a private, a public sector company or a government organisation. And when he/she demands this, it is the obligation of the government to provide it. 

How would you persuade the private sector to provide this kind of apprenticeship?

It is a misconception that the private sector needs to be persuaded. According to the Apprentices Act of 1961, companies of a certain size are mandated to take apprentices. I have held extensive consultations and discussions with bodies, such as the CII (the Confederation of Indian Industry) and those representing MSMEs (micro, small and medium enterprises). They have told us that MSMEs actually wanted to be part of it (Act) but were excluded. They wanted it because it lowered labour costs for them and resolved the important pain point of getting people. We have proposed to expand the number of participating firms from the current 45,000 to about 1 million. You may well ask how did we come up with this number. It is based on the latest GST data which showed that there are a million firms with an annual turnover of at least Rs 5 crore.

How many people would avail this right and what would be the fiscal burden?

According to the modelling that we have done, we expect anywhere between two million and four million demands a year initially. This is like the MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act). However, unlike the MGNREGA, this will not focus on your local area. The point is to provide skilling, dignity, and employability. Today, we have various forms of unemployment allowances given by the BJP and the Congress-run governments. But that does not address the problem. So, this is aspirational. At least a million private firms will participate in this initiative. Add to that other public sector companies and government organisations, and we can very easily fulfil that demand. The cost will be shared between the government and the employer concerned. So at two million people, this works out to be Rs 20,000 crore. If we assume it’s shared equally between the government and the private sector, although I am not saying it will be, the cost for the government costs will be Rs 10,000 crore.

The Congress is proposing to enact a separate Act for security provisions for gig workers. Will it entail abandoning the labour code on social security?

The Rajasthan government had passed a law on gig workers. It will be an enhanced version of the Rajasthan law. It will be modelled on the proposed Act by the Telangana government, which should be enacted in a month or so. We have held consultations with Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy, with gig workers and their employers such as Ola, Uber, Zomato, and Swiggy. It is about social security for workers and better working conditions. But at the same time, we are fully cognizant that most of these employers are not profit-making. We do not want to impose burdensome costs on these companies. There are about 10 million people employed in the gig economy. We do not want to jeopardise any of that. So the idea is for the government to step in. 

The Congress has promised to fill 3 million government vacancies. Does this include state government vacancies? How sustainable will it be fiscally?

There is a full table that we have worked out. It does not include state governments. It includes central government departments and institutions, such as those providing health care services and primary and higher education, police, and judiciary. These are called vacancies because these have already been budgeted for, otherwise these will be called new jobs.

How will the promised Rs 5,000 crore corpus for startups be funded?

This does not involve a single extra penny. I have looked at all the different funds for startups. There is a Rs 10,000 crore fund of funds, there are a few Rs 1,000 crore seed funds, and many other funds. What we said was that we are going to restructure all these funds to ensure better allocation and disbursal. We came up with the figure of Rs 5,000 crore on the basis of around Rs 10 crore for each constituency. Half of the fund will be allocated to the youth below 40 years. The fund will be disbursed widely in terms of geography, either through districts or through Parliament constituencies. This also takes care of our class and caste issues because when you start disbursing geographically, it automatically means you are going to cover rural and urban areas, poor and rich, and reserved as well as minority-dominated constituencies.

How is the proposal to curb examination paper leaks different from the Bill that Parliament has passed?

The difference is that there will be monetary compensation and there will be fast-track courts. We felt that the law (passed recently) did not go far enough.

You have been opposed to the proposal to restore the Old Pension Scheme? Will it be part of the Congress’ manifesto?

We have recently submitted the draft manifesto to the Congress President (Mallikarjun Kharge). It will go through the Congress Working Committee.