Four months after the murder of HP call center employee
Pratibha Srikanth Murthy, the Karnataka government has made changes in laws
related to transport of women employed on night duty in the IT and BPO sectors.
The Labour CommisÂsioner recently notified the amendments
in Section 25 of the KarnaÂtaka shops and ComÂmercial Establishments Act. The
new guidelines stipulate the presence of armed guards for vehiÂcles
transporting women emÂployees, a communiÂcaÂtion network to connect the
vehicles with the company and a control room to monitor the movement of all
vehicles.
The law also mandates that the company should have the
bio-data and antecedents of drivers engaged by them verified by the police.
Besides, the employee would need to be informed of the vehicle's license plate
number and name of the driver assigned to pick her up and any change should be
informed in advance. The supervisory staff of the company has to plan in
advance, the schedule and pick-up and drop of women emploÂyees. Any change of
drivers or routes should be allowed only with prior knowÂledge of employees and
their supervisors. ManaÂgeÂments are not perÂmitted to disclose teleÂphone
numÂbers, partiÂcularly mobile numbers of woman employees to unauthorized
persons. Routes should be careÂfully selected so that no woman employee is the
first to be picked up or the last to be dropped.
CyberMedia News Bangalore, April 7