The global pandemic of COVID 19 posed one of the biggest challenges which the Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises in India ever witnessed. It brought down the functioning of these enterprises to a complete stand still posing many operational hick-ups. With social distancing becoming the new normal and revenue figures crashing heavily the enterprises are bound to rework their operational model post lockdown. COVID 19 has undoubtedly opened the scope for a huge recession in employment to take place especially in the unorganized sectors. It thus becomes highly essential for both the entrepreneurs as well as the employees to understand the legal implications of handling the situation without having an adverse impact on the survival of the organization as well as the individual. In this context World Trade Center Bhubaneswar organized a webinar on “Law Under Lockdown: Legal Consequence of COVID-19 on Employment Arrangements of MSMEs”. 

The webinar was facilitated by Advocate Bibhu Prasad Tripathy. An advocate by profession Mr. Tripathy also plays an active role of a solicitor and writer in the field of Business and Constitutional Law. Mr. Tripathy in his deliberations provided an overview of the labor laws in India and shared his experience of having practiced on the subject in the Supreme Court of India, Delhi High Court and Odisha High Court. Mr. Tripathy also being the Additional Government Advocate for the Government of Odisha spoke on the employment scenario in the MSME sector of the State. Sighting examples of various issues which are recurrent in the sector Mr. Tripathy spoke about the employment arrangement patterns that are usually put to practice by the small enterprises which operate with less than twenty employees. He further shared insights from important cases represented by him for the protection of the rights of employees. 

Sharing important statistics on the estimated employment in the MSME sector, Mr. Tripathy spoke about the distribution pattern of the enterprises under various categories of urban and rural regions. He presented an introspective view of regaining the losses by the enterprises which is not possible without creation of jobs. While sighting the advisory issued by the Ministry of Home affairs regarding employment conditions he shared that according to the advisory neither the salary nor the employment could be terminated by the employers under the COVID 19 lockdown phase. He also discussed in details about the clauses on payment of wages under the Payment of Wages Act and the Industrial Dispute Act. He further advocated for a comprehensive mechanism for the MSME sector to be developed and the laws be revisited for the benefit of the unorganized sector employees and also recommended separate relief packages for the employers enabling them to tackle the issues efficiently. 

Earlier in her address Mrs. Nimeshika Natarajan, Assistant Director, World Trade Center Bhubaneswar spoke about the importance of addressing the practical issues and challenges that this pandemic has posed to the businesses specially the micro and small level enterprises. Welcoming the attendees to the webinar she took the opportunity to introduce Mr. Tripathy to all. “Understanding and optimum utilization of resources is going to be one key aspect for consideration of any enterprise Post COVID 19 management of manpower resources and revisiting the employment strategy is also going to be a focal point.” she said while explaining about the objective of the webinar.

Ms. Asha Mohapatra, Assistant Manager, World Trade Center Bhubaneswar proposed the vote of thanks.