ABSTRACT
The industrial sector, burdened by the labour laws, is not serious about enlarging its skill base. For that to happen, workers must be employed for much longer spells and the units too must be of a certain size. Only then will skills develop endogenously and incrementally enrich, through R&D, the human resource base, whether of an enterprise or organization. Unfortunately, this is not quite what is happening in India which is why the industrial sector suffers from an absence of skilled labour, made worse by the poor quality and paucity of vocational institutes. Agriculture has for long been characterized by informal labour, and informal labour alone. As rural India finds itself under greater pressure it expels millions to the cities, but they are largely unskilled and are characterized only by their determination to work. These people are then hired by the non-farm sectors in urban India and the union with informal labour continues. As the unwritten pact with informal labour continues, citizenship remains undermined. It is only when workers are able to move up to formal terms of engagement that their rights and claims as citizens are properly recognized.
