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 V. - Working conditions in factories

Collection:: Economics Books

WORKING CONDITIONS IN FACTORIES. 3 have been allowed to go on leave, possibly for the greater part of the year, without any suitable appointment being made in their place. In no province is the present staff sufficiently strong to permit of this being done, even under existing conditions. Leave vacan- cies would be best filled by promoting Assistant Inspectors, if they are competent, to officiate in the higher grade and appointing proba- tionary officers in their place. If no Assistant Inspector 1s-avail- able, the work cannot be carried on without a temporary Inspector, and the fact that these will ordinarily be difficult to obtain furnishes an additional ground for the general appointment of Assistant Inspectors. Conferences of Inspectors. The last conference of Chief Inspectors of Factories convened by the Central Government took place in 1924 under the chairmanship of the Member for Industries and Labour. Since then no conference, other than an informal one held in 1927 between the Chief Inspectors of the Bengal and Bombay Presidencies, appears to have taken place. The Factories Act applies to the whole of India and, with the present lack of co-ordination, methods of administration display differences which are not justified by conditions, while useful experience gained in dealing with a problem in one province is not made available for those facing it in an- other. Werecommend that, in the interests of uniformity and efficiency of administration, biennial conferences of Chief Inspectors from all pro- vinces should be convened and held under the auspices of the department dealing with labour in the Central Government. Such conferences should be equally valuable to the central and provincial Governments, not only in considering the adequacy of current legislation and the problems created by its enforcement, but also in matters such as the uniform compiling of statistical and other returns. ‘With the extension of regulation, similar conferences of all grades of factory inspectors and of as many ex-officio inspectors as possible should be held at intervals of about two years in the different provinces. This would be of espe- cial value where reliance must of necessity be placed to a considerable extent on part-time officers not working under the immediate control of the Chief Inspector, and where increasing regulation tends to result in an increasing decentralisation of administration. Work of Magistrates. There is abundant evidence to show that the difficulties in the way of efficient administration of the Factories Act are greatly enhanced by de- fects connected with the conduct of prosecutions. The Act itself provides adequate penalties for offences and the scale of maximum fines wag enhanced by the Legislature in 1922. It also provides that nearly all offences against the Act are to be tried by magistrates of the highest class. The clear intention is that cases under it should be entrusted only to ex- perienced magistrates. Unfortunately, offences, particularly in smaller centres, frequently come before magistrates with little or no special expe- rience of the kind required, and the results show too often an imperfect grasp of the principles of factory law. In the majority of provinces, there are numerous cases of inadequate fines. particularly for repeated offences ;

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