Report of the Royal Commission on Labour in India

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1850495947

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-233603

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Report of the Royal Commission on Labour in India

Place of publication:: London

Publisher:: His Majesty's Stationery Off.

Year of publication:: 1931

Scope:: xviii, 580 S.; graph. Darst., Kt.

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter XX. - Recruitment for Assam

Collection:: Economics Books

RECRUITMENT FOR ASSAM, 363 eight districts of Assam in which the tea plantations lie. It is impor- tant to observe that the legislative restrictions which are imposed on recruitment for work in the districts in question have no counterpart elsewhere in India. Migration, as we have indicated, is a feature of Indian industrial labour everywhere. Workers may be assisted to emigrate to any part of India; even the employers in the tea areas of North Bengal adjoining Assam are subject to no hampering enact- ments, although they draw labour from areas where the Assam employer also recruits. The restrictions imposed on the movement of labour to these eight districts known as the labour-districts, are governed by Act VI of 1901 as amended from time to time. The recruiting areas to which this Act applies are Madras, Bengal, the United Provinces, Bihar and Orissa, the Central Provinces and Assam itself. The local Governments of these provinces, by means of notification, can prohibit recruitment, either absolutely or otherwise than in accordance with such of the provisions of the Act as may be specified in the notifi- cation. The question of the repeal of the Act and of the enactment of a simpler measure in its place has been for some time under the consideration of the Government of India, and we were supplied with copies ‘of the correspondence with local Governments on the subject. We are in complete agreement with the view expressed by the Govern- ment of India that « the principle of complete prohibition of recruit- ment in particular areas” is no longer defensible. If it is feared that grave abuses will arise, it should suffice to vest local Governments with adequate powers of control over recruitment. But there appears to be no justification for the exercise of the power which is now con- ferred by Section 3 of the Act to prohibit recruitment altogether in particular localities. This power has been exercised in respect of five divisions and two districts of the United Provinces, and we find that the prohibition has not been withdrawn, in spite of the strong recommenda- tion to this effect made by the Royal Commission on Agriculture, with which we are in complete agreement. We recommend that the power to prohibit recruitment; should be withdrawn immediately, and that in future no barrier should be set up to prevent the normal play of social and economic forces in attracting labour from one part of Indla to another Present Procedure. Before we deal in detail with the provisions of Act VI of 1901, and the question of its revision, it would be convenient to describe briefly the working of the present system of recruitment. Under the Act the only recognised method of recruitment is through the agency of garden sardars. The manager of a tea garden in Assam appoints as a sardar a worker who is willing to return to his home to bring up other members of his family or fresh recruits and gives him a sardar’s certi- ficate on which is shown the area in which he may recruit labour for the garden and the local agent to whom he is accredited. The certifi- cate is countersigned by the magistrate of the district in which the garden is situated and is kept by the sardar in a tin cover which is

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