FACTORIES (AMENDMENT) BILL 327
Commission on Labour, and Royal Commission on Labour recommended that although the international convention did not put any obligation upon the Government of India to bring the Factory Law in consonance with the convention established in Washington, they recommended that nonetheless it was necessary that the hours of labour in India should be fixed at 54. That recommendation was accepted by the Government of India and an amending Bill was brought in the year 1934, underwhich the present maximum which is fixed by section 34 was brought into operation. The Government of India now think that time and circumstances have arisen whereby it is necessary that the Indian factory workers should be allowed the benefit of the maximum hours of labour that were fixed by the Washington Convention ; and that is the reason why this Bill has been brought forward.
I need not eleborate the reasons why Government regards this matter as somewhat emergent. But I might mention briefly the considerations that have moved the Government of India to bring forward this measure. I think it will be agreed that apart from other considerations, if one were to take into account only the climatic conditions that prevail in this country, it would be agreed that for that, if for no other reason, the hours of work in a country like India ought to be much less than the hours of work that arc prevalent in other countries. There is also the other reason, namely, that during the war, under section 8 of the Ordinance, we had permitted the Provincial Governments to allow many exemptions from the provisions of the Factories Act which had the effect of increasing the hours of work for factory labour and the Government thinks that the strain arising from the extension of the hours of work during the period of the war was so great that it is necessary in the interests of the health of the workers that they ought to be now granted a substantial relief. I might also mention to the House that the Government also thinks that this measure will have some salutary effect in the matter of relieving unemployment which is likely to arise as a result of retrenchment. If 48 hours and 54 hours which have been fixed by the present Bill......
Sjt. N. V. Gadgil (Bombay Central Division: Non-Muhammdan Rural): Make it 40.
The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : ………… were to be of universal operation, it is, I think, logical that more people would be