PROMOTION OF LABOUR WELFARE IN INDIA 137
Earlier during the Session, the Committee reviewed the progress achieved in respect of opening cooked food and refreshment canteens for workers in industrial concerns. It was revealed that in spite of difficulties such canteens were functioning in considerable numbers and were proving popular among the workers.
*Coal Mines Labour Welfare Ordinance, 1944
An ordinance entitled “The Coal Mines Labour Welfare Ordinance, 1944,” has been promulgated today, constituting a fund for financing activities to promote the welfare of labour employed in the coal mining industry. The Ordinance extends to the whole of British India and comes into force at once, said a Press Note issued by the Labour Department, Government of India, on January 31. It continued :
To create the fund, the Central Government will levy a cess on all coal and soft coke despatched by rail from collieries in British India, at a rate to be fixed from time to time by notification in the Gazette of India after consultation with an Advisory Committee. This duty will not be less than one anna and not more than four annas per ton. The duty will be collected, on behalf of the Central Government, by the Railway Administration by which coal or soft coke is carried.
While the Ordinance generally provides that the proceeds thus realised will be credited to a Labour Welfare Fund to meet expenditure on measures “necessary or expedient to promote the welfare of labour employed in the coal-mining industry”, it specifies a number of items for which the fund may in particular be utilised. The labour welfare programme to be financed from the Fund aims at providing housing, water supplies, facilities for washing, improvement of educational facilities and standards of living among the workers, including nutrition, amelioration of social conditions and the provision of recreation and transport facilities.
The improvement of public health and sanitation, the prevention of disease, the provision of medical facilities and the improvement of
*Indian Information, February 15, 1944, pp. 153-54.