MICA MINES LABOUR WELFARE FUND BILL 381
of the arrangement which has been arrived at between His Majesty’s Government and the Government of India. I might say that this arrangement has the fullest support of the mica industry itself.
With regard to this measure I would like also to inform the House that this measure has been undertaken with the fullest consent of the industry itself. This question was first broached by me at a conference which was held at Kodarma on 29th April 1944, at which I presided and the representatives of the mica industry were also present, and I was glad to find that the industry as a whole responded to my suggestion for having a welfare fund. The matter was again taken up on 9th November
1945, at a conference held at Dhanbad under the chairmanship of the Coal Mines Welfare Commissioner. There again, the producers of mica accepted the suggestion. Lastly, a third conference was held on 19th December, 1945, also at Dhanbad under the chairmanship of the Secretary of the Labour Department, where a final agreement was reached between the Government and the Mica mineowners. I would also like to state that our proposal to levy a cess on the industry does not seem to have discouraged the industries from further exploiting the field of mica production and I find that during the last few months, there have been to my knowledge at any rate, three big flatations of new companies which have entered into the field of mica. I find, for instance, a new flatation under the name of Micantic and Mica Products Co., Ltd., from Madras with an authorised capital of Rs. 5 lakhs. Another is called the Saraswati Mica Industries Limited, from Calcutta with an authorised capital of Rs. 5 lakhs and I know as a matter of fact that the Christian Mining Industries Ltd., have also applied for capital issues for mica mining and for the establishment of a micanite factory. These circumstances would show that the cess has not been viewed by the industries in any tragic manner and I think that they believe that it would be possible for the industry to bear the burden of this welfare cess.
Coming to the points made by my friend Diwan Chaman Lall, I must apologise for not supplying him with a copy of the report which he had asked for at some early stage. I must say that I altogether forgot about it. But I do not think that he has in any way lost in dealing with the matter in the way in which he has dealt with it. All that probably he would have done if he had the report is that he would have made a speech of double the length of what he did.