PIL filed against SEZ firms alleging labour violations.

Times of India: Hyderabad: Monday, September 09, 2019.

Activists of the NGO Forum against Corruption have taken up a legal fight against IT companies in Special Economic Zones for not implementing labour rules where it alleged that employees are forced to work more than 48 hours a week. Activist Vijay Gopal told TOI, “We have filed a public interest litigation in the Telangana High Court against the violations of the Shops and Establishments Act by the IT companies regarding the leave policy, notice period and non-payment of salaries on time. The companies are forcing employees to work for more than 48 hours and not paying over time compensation. 

They are excluding break and lunch time from the calculations of weekly hours which leads to financial losses to the employee. Employees are exploited to work for longer hours.” The Telangana labour department principal secretary, Director (SEZs) at Ministry of Commerce and SEZ officials in Vishakapatnam were made as respondents in the PIL. Based on the complaint filed by Vijay Gopal, Ministry of Commerce under-secretary Aditya Narayana had written to Development Commissioner for SEZs. “The Ministry of Commerce had written in March 2019 to Vizag SEZ commissioner, but there has been no response till date. There is no response to the representation given to the labour department commissioner in November 2018 either,” said Gopal. 

In a RTI reply, the labour department stated that the calculation of weekly hours must be calculated including the number of break hours. “The Labour department has no information on how many companies are following the leave police as per the law,” said Vijay Gopal. According to the law, the total number of working hours are 48 hours in a week (8 hours per day) with overtime wage for extra hours. The total number of work .hours shall not exceed 50, hours including overtime.