November 12, 2001

    The Labour Minister Shri Sharad Yadav has said that employment generation with adequate social protection is a priority of the government while addressing issues of globalization. He said that in today’s global scenario there is a strong movement to reduce redundancy by upgrading job skills and multi-skill training of workers. Shri Yadav called for developing suitable mechanism for human resource development and skill upgradation on sustainable basis. He said that there is need for improving the work culture of all stake-holders, which will be conducive for quality and productivity necessary to face international competition. Shri Yadav was speaking on the occasion of reorientation programme for VRS-Optees of Central Public Sector Enterprises in Mumbai today. He said that the Government is trying to mitigate the negative impact of globalisation. Shri Yadav said that under the National Renewal Fund Scheme about half of the 1.38 lakh industrial workers who took voluntary retirement till March this year, were retained and about 18,750 were deployed in the wage/self employment. He said that the NRF Scheme which was administered by the Ministries of Industry and Commerce, has been revised and would be implemented by the Department of Public Enterprises. He expressed satisfaction over the Scheme being implemented by not only public sector institutions but also those in the private sector. He said that active involvement of public sector undertakings, employees assistance centre, training institutes, banks and other promotional agencies for counseling and retraining and rationalization of workers would be ensured to have effective rehabilitation of displaced workers.