INDIA

(Delivered by Mr Dilip Sinha, Ambassador and PR, PMI, Geneva)

Plenary Session

103rd session of ILC (Geneva, June 2014)

Mr. Chairperson....

I would like to begin by complimenting ILO for its efforts to bring about social justice and internationally recognised labour rights and its advocacy of decent work for all women and men in the world of work.

We believe that ILO has the sole mandate on labour issues and that it must zealously guard its leadership supremacy in all labour issues, having as it does, the advantage of a very well entrenched and laudable tripartite structure coupled with transparency and coherence. Any move by other organisations to enter the area of labour standards must be repelled unequivocally.

I compliment the Director General for the balanced and comprehensive document on labour migration. In the present era of globalisation, when synergies are envisaged at national and global level in every sphere of life, migration assumes great significance.  We welcome ILO’s initiatives to integrate the issue of labour migration to the larger Post-2015 Development Agenda. Providing employment and decent work to all is one of the focus areas of the Sustainable Development Goals. We strongly urge that labour mobility be recognised as a factor of sustainable growth in the Post-2015 Development Agenda. ILO must use its position as the supreme forum for deliberation of labour issues to ensure the implementation and facilitation of skill portability and labour mobility across countries.

Changing demographics across the globe are rewriting equations of human resource management. The report correctly highlights the economic connotations of migration. For migrant workers, decent work means non-discrimination in wages, equitable working conditions, fair and equitable recruitment practices and social protection to all.  We support ILO’s resolve for promoting decent, productive and equitable employment opportunities across the globe and in promoting policies which enhance portability of social security benefits.

This era demands that governance of labour migration issues is undertaken in a manner that it results in a win-win situation for both source and destination countries.

We are particularly happy to note that the Office has included “Transition from informality to formality” as a standards setting item. We in India have a huge percentage of workers in the informal sector.  Any convergence that may emerge on this issue will facilitate formulation of a rational policy to address the feasibility and modalities for transition in India.

India is fully committed to securing inclusive growth, leading to sustainable development. We have a large and potentially employable and productive youth population which should find decent employment. Skill development is an area where the Government of India is engaged pro-actively. The National Skill Development Initiative is a massive attempt by India to empower its people through improved skills and knowledge, thereby equipping them to compete in the global market.

We are committed to the idea of social protection for our workforce. Our government flagship healthcare program, RSBY, covers workers in the unorganised sector and is successfully running throughout the country.  Social protection floors are vital, but these need to be country-specific, designed according to national needs and priorities.

We look forward to ILO’s role as a technical guide and adviser in the matters of labour.  Most of the global labour force, especially the young, comes from developing nations.  ILO must realign its priorities and responses to this changed scenario.  India has always highlighted the imbalance in the regional allocation of ILO resources, whether technical or financial. We have also always voiced our support for change in the recruitment policies, particularly the language criteria, so as to give a fair chance to every region to have its due presence in the ILO. We appreciate that the DG and his team have been working on the agenda and we do hope multilingualism in the right perspective would be accepted in ILO.

We also look forward to technical support. We want country offices to be strengthened. We look forward to the new research agenda for the Central Research Department incorporating issues which are important for developing the world.

To conclude, Mr. Chairperson, India reposes great faith in the leadership of ILO and what it encapsulates in its principles and practices for promoting fundamental rights and decent work conditions.  I join all member states present here to pledge our support to develop policy coherence for a socially sustainable agenda with decent work, full employment and inclusive growth as the overriding policy objectives.

Thank you.