Union Labour and Sports Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Friday, 19 June 2026, shared a statement attributed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi underlining the government's rationale for the new labour codes, calling them a framework to deliver greater security, transparency, and rights to workers across India.

Quoting PM Modi, the minister wrote: 'नए लेबर कोड़ का उद्देश्य कामगारों को अधिक सुरक्षा, अधिक पारदर्शिता, और अधिक अधिकार देना है' — ('The purpose of the new labour codes is to give workers more security, more transparency, and more rights'). The post was accompanied by a video and tagged under the hashtag #PMViksitBharatRozgarYojana, linking the message to the government's broader employment agenda under the Viksit Bharat vision.

Context

India's labour law landscape has historically been fragmented, with 44 central labour laws governing everything from wages to workplace safety. The current government initiated a consolidation exercise that resulted in four labour codes — on Wages, Industrial Relations, Social Security, and Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions — enacted between 2019 and 2020. The stated aim has been to simplify compliance, extend formal social security coverage, and make the regulatory environment more predictable for both workers and employers.

Mandaviya, as the minister responsible for the rollout of these codes, has been a consistent advocate for their implementation. His post amplifies the Prime Minister's framing of the reform as fundamentally worker-centric rather than purely business-driven.

Policy Backdrop

The legislative groundwork for the four codes began with the introduction of bills in Parliament from 2017 onwards. The Code on Wages was the first to be passed, in 2019, followed by the remaining three codes in September 2020. Together, they aim to universalise minimum wage guarantees, streamline dispute resolution, and bring unorganised and gig workers into the ambit of social security for the first time at scale.

Earlier employment-linked schemes such as the PM Rojgar Protsahan Yojana, launched in 2016–17, sought to incentivise formal job creation by subsidising employer contributions to provident fund accounts. The current push builds on that lineage, with the Viksit Bharat framework — the government's long-term roadmap for a developed India by 2047 — providing the overarching policy umbrella for employment generation and worker welfare.

Stakeholders and Impact

The reforms directly affect workers in both the organised and unorganised sectors, trade unions, and MSMEs, which employ the largest share of India's workforce. Trade unions have historically held mixed views on the codes, with some welcoming the extension of social security and others raising concerns about provisions they argue dilute collective bargaining rights and ease conditions for retrenchment.

For MSMEs, simplified compliance under a unified code structure is expected to reduce the administrative burden of adhering to multiple overlapping statutes. The government has presented the balance between worker protection and employer flexibility as essential to attracting domestic and foreign investment and sustaining job creation at scale.

What's Next

The critical outstanding step remains state-level notification of rules under the four codes. Labour is a concurrent subject under the Indian Constitution, meaning both central and state governments must frame and notify rules before the codes can come into full operational effect. Progress has been uneven across states, and the pace of rule notification will determine when workers and businesses actually experience the reforms on the ground.

Any fresh budgetary allocations or operational guidelines linked to schemes under the #PMViksitBharatRozgarYojana banner will be closely watched as indicators of how the government intends to translate the legislative framework into measurable employment outcomes ahead of 2047.