Bengaluru, Dec 30: Karnataka cabinet on Monday approved a bill to amend an act aimed at allowing women employees to work during the night in entities covered by the Shops and Commercial Establishments Act.

The cabinet approved the Karnataka Shops and Commercial Establishment (Amendment) Bill, 2019 that will amend the act of 1961, specifying certain conditions, including provision of transport facilities free of cost and deployment of adequate security guards.

Briefing reporters on the cabinet decisions, Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister J C Madhuswamy said there was no opportunity for women to work in the entities, which includes offices and premises of any trade or business, in the night shifts so far.

"In order to provide opportunity for them we have decided to amend the act by defining what sort of protection should be provided for them for working in night," he said.

Under the act, 'shops' means any premises where any trade or business is carried on or where services are rendered to customers and includes offices, storerooms, godowns, warehouses, used in such connection with such trade or business, but does not include a commercial establishment or a shop attached to a factory.

The bill is likely to be brought in the assembly during the first session of 2020 to be held in February.

The latest move comes a month after the state government issued a notification allowing women to work in night shifts (7 pm to 6 am) in all factories registered under the Factories Act.

The amendment bill states that a woman employee who is so willing may be allowed to work during night subject to conditions including willingness to be obtained in writing, provision of transport facilities by the establishment from the residence of the woman employee to the workplace and back free of cost and with adequate security.

Also, such transport facility shall have GPS for tracking and monitoring.

Besides, adequate number of security guards,sufficient rest rooms and dispensary facility among others should be provided during the night shift for the benefit of the women employees, it said.

The establishment shall bear the cost of creche obtained by the women employees from voluntary or other organisations and conduct pre-employment screening of the antecedents of all drivers employed.

An App in mobile may be developed and adopted by the establishment through which the women employee can contact the concerned at the time of emergency, it added.

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Bengaluru, Nov 13: The Union government on Wednesday informed the Karnataka High Court that it had directed the State government to revoke licenses granted to private companies allowing them to collect, process, and commercialise human breast milk.

The High Court was hearing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by a person named Munegowda, who raised concerns about multinational corporations profiting from the collection and sale of breast milk.

During the hearing, Additional Solicitor General of India for High Court of Karnataka Arvind Kamath told a bench of Chief Justice N V Anjaria and Justice K V Aravind that the Union Ministry of Ayush had recently instructed the Karnataka government to take action against such licenses. Following these directions, several licenses issued to private firms were rescinded by the State government.

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Kamath stated: "The central government has mandated the State to cancel all such licenses. Some companies had initially received these licenses under Ayurvedic norms, which permitted the commercial use of human breast milk. However, the Centre has now intervened, and the State has complied by canceling some of these licenses. At least one company has already had its license revoked, and it has since challenged this cancellation in the High Court."

Advocate B Visveswaraiah, representing the petitioner, presented a 50 ML bottle of packaged breast milk and a 10-gram packet of powdered breast milk, highlighting their sale prices of Rs 1,239 and Rs 313, respectively.

Kamath noted that these licenses were previously issued under provisions related to Ayurvedic and naturopathy practices but reiterated that the central government's recent directive requires their cancellation. He also requested that the court include the Union Ministry of Ayush as a respondent in the ongoing PIL.

The High Court directed the petitioner to implead the Union Ministry in the case and issued a notice. The matter is scheduled for further hearing on December 4.

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