The Labour Ministry has brought down the number of registers to five from the current 56, with the regard to nine Central Laws to reduce the compliance burden, Union Minister of State for Labour and Employment Bandaru Dattatreya said today.

Announcing this at an interaction meeting with employers and employees of textile industry here, Dattatreya said that this will save efforts, cost and lessen the compliance burden and will give relief to nearly 4.54 crore non-agriculture sector establishments in the country.

This exercise has brought down the number of data fields in five registers to only 144 from the then existing 933 fields in 56 registers, he said adding that this was the result of an exercise to do away with overlapping fields, as part of the intention notification in November 2016.

All previous registers envisage under various acts and rules have been omitted and placed in five common registers, he said.

Similarly the ministry will develop a software, which will be put on the Shram Suvidha Portal for free download with an aim to facilitate maintenance of those registers in a digitised form in accordance with provisions made in the notification for rules, Dattatreya said.

The acts include, Building and Other Construction workers Act 1996, Minimum wages act 1948 and The Working Journalists and other Newspapers employees (condition of Service) Act 1955, he said.

As proposed to amalgamate 44 laws into four codes, bills on two codes one on wages and another of Industrial relations, will be tabled in the next session of the Parliament, as there would be a meeting in this regard in Delhi next week and after consultation these will be taken to Cabinet, he said.

Responding to the demand from industrialists and workers on long waiting ESI Hospital in Tirupur, he announced that an 100-bedded hospital at a cost of Rs.150 crore will be set up, for which land has already been acquired and 100-bedded hospitals will be set up at six places in Tamil Nadu soon.

ESI service scheme would be extended to all the districts in the Country, which at present is covering on 393 districts, he said.

Of the 4.7 crore subscribers, Universal Account Numbers were given to 2.1 crore and the remaining will be given by March this year, he said.