958 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
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*** Stopping of Women Working in Coal Mines**
- Prof. N. G. Ranga : Will the Honourable the Labour Member be pleased to state :
(a) When Government propose to stop women working in Coal Mines now that the war is over; and
(b) Whether they have any schemes ready to provide these women who have been brought away from their villages any alternative employment or to provide them free return passages and to free them also from any debts that they may have incurred while at work in the mines in the hope of repaying them through their savings at the mines ?
The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : (a) Government have no intention of entirely prohibiting the employment of women in Coal Mines. Their employment underground has, however, been prohibited from the 1st February, 1946.
(b) The Welfare Fund of the Central Government has decided to open vegetable farms in the coalfields and the various Mining Associations of employers and the Provincial Governments of Bengal and Bihar were asked to do everything possible to provide at once alternative employment for women released from underground work. Majority of these women have already been provided with surface work in the coal fields.
377
@ Recommendations of Indian Labour Conference
- Prof. N. G. Ranga : Will the Honourable the Labour Member be pleased to state:
(a) the recommendations made by the Indian Labour Conference that met in November 1945 ;
- Legislative Assembly Debates (Central), Vol. I of 1946, 25th February 1946, p. 1427.
@ lbid.