GOVERNMENT’S POLICY TOWARDS LABOUR 153
Departments which are controlled by the Honourable Members in charge of them.
Then, Sir, we have recently considerably expanded the Department. Before 1942, we had only one Under-Secretary to deal with labour matters in the Labour Department. We have now one Deputy Secretary and two Under-Secretaries in the Department. In addition to that we have a Labour Adviser, we have a Labour welfare Adviser—Mr. Nimbkar—we have eight Assistant Labour Welfare Advisers. We have appointed a statistician in our Department in order to collect all labour statistics, and in addition to that we have a very large staff, in fact, a very considerable staff to deal with technical training, which, I am sure, is a matter of great benefit to labour in general.
An Honourable Member : A good case for a scrutiny committee.
Dr. B.R. Ambedkar : Then, Sir, with regard to the question of appointment of special officers, this is not a matter about which the Department had no knowledge. As a matter of fact, we had made a beginning by appointing a special officer to report on sickness insurance. He was Professor Adarkar. It was our wish and our proposal to go on appointing similar officers to deal with similar problems, to make reports and to suggest means and methods for carrying this proposal into legislation.
But what happened was this. Last August, when the Tripartite Conference met, we placed before them the report for consideration. The Committee and the Tripartite Conference unanimously passed a Resolution that the Government of India should also appoint a Committee to consider social welfare measures and also to suggest ways and means by which the principle of social security could be applied to working classes of India.
To that resolution, I am glad to say, we immediately gave effect, and constituted a Committee which has now been working on that subject. Obviously, Sir, it would have been very wrong for the Department to have gone on appointing other officers to report on separate subjects. We had to wait till the report of the Committee was placed before us. I can assure my Honourable friends that the project which we have of appointing special officers to make investigation into special problems is not abandoned, but will be taken up when the report of the Committee is made available to Government. Sir, I think, that