In the above perspective, Sh Gupta elaborated on some of the  key issues pertaining to Human Resources Development and Labour flexibility like Availability of Manpower and their Skill Development, Employment Practices & Laws,Labour Flexibility,Productive and co-operative partnership between workers and the Management. He said that despite  a large network of training institutions/schemes,   there is still a dearth of competent  and  employable manpower for the  MSME sector which is mainly due to lack of checks on infrastructure quality, trainer competency and compatibility of the curriculums with industry requirements.Moreover, implementation of apprenticeship training system is cumbersome involving  un-necessary regulations while Institute-Industry interaction is negligible. Therefore,  the main challenge during 12th Five year plan and beyond will be to make  manpower available to MSME as per their requirements.

Suggesting remedial measures for these bottlenecks IIA President said that the recommendations of PM Task force on Skill Development and Labour issues be implemented immediately, Certification system similar to credit ratings of Industries should be implemented for the training Institutions, apprenticeship model followed in Germany and adopted successfully in France, Switzerland, Austria, Denmark, Netherland and lately in China also may be studied and implemented in India, Training institutions should get jobs from Industry and get these processed in respective institutions by the trainees under the guidance of expert trainers,Industry representatives in adequate numbers should be involved in Governing Councils/Management Committees of the institutions,Industry/Industry Associations may be encouraged to adopt Govt. Training Institutions wherein they contribute to build the capacity of the institution and are involved in the management of the institution, MNREGA scheme should be extended to Micro& Small Enterprises, besides, data of unemployed  trained manpower from all the institutions should be made available on a Single website/portal.

Sh Anil Gupta said, “it is accepted and realised by one and all that the present Labour Laws as applicable to MSME are not in favour of both the industry as well as the workers. Hon’ble Prime Minister has expressed and raised some serious concerns on the issue during 43rd Session of Indian Labour Conference which need to be addressed by  the present  Working Group.”

Speaking on the Social Security problem, he shared  that  IIA has  submitted a proposal to the Planning Commission and  Govt. of India which suggests that a Social Security tax i.e certain percentage of the sales turn over may be levied on the Micro & Small enterprises who may then be exempted from payment of EPF, ESI, Gratuity , Bonus and  submission of  the related reports and returns.

On Labour Flexibility issue, IIA President  suggested that agencies may be legalised to supply Contract Labour and  workers may be trained in Multi skills so that they are able to adjust as per the demand of the industry. Govt. may provide incentives for multi skill trainings to the agencies/industry.

Mr Gupta also recommended the implementation  of Quality circles which he said will  ensure meaningful participation of the workers in the enterprise management. Govt however is required to provide expert help to MSME to institutionalise the Quality Circles.