The central government is likely to allow select factories that produce essential items to engage workers beyond the stipulated eight hours a day.

The move is aimed at curbing footfall to ensure social distancing at workplaces and also averting a disruption in the supply chain of products like grocery items, medicines and processed food.

The suggestion for such a step — already implemented by the Congress government in Rajasthan — has come at a time the country enters the second phase of the Covid-19 lockdown till May 3.

“The increase in working hours is being examined by a group of secretaries. The details of the procedure to make it effective are not clear yet,” a labour ministry official said.

Labour economists, however, cautioned that it could set a precedent and make exploitation of workers the new normal.

They also warned that longer working hours now might end up becoming a bigger problem with oversupply of labour when the lockdown period ends.

Ten central trade unions except the Sangh-affiliated Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh have opposed any increase in working hours.

These unions, including the Congress-backed Intuc, the CPM’s labour arm Citu and the CPI-affiliated Aituc, had submitted a joint memorandum to labour minister Santosh Gangwar on Monday.

Sources said the labour ministry was looking into the proposal to increase work hours as a temporary step. The workers may be paid extra, they said, though the details had not been finalised yet.

A major hurdle, though, are the different labour laws the plan could run into. The Factories Act, for instance, stipulates eight hours of work a day and 48 hours in a week of six days.

A worker can be engaged for up to 60 hours a week but has to be paid twice the wage rate for the overtime period.

The Wage Code passed last year provides for nine hours of work a day, including the time spent for food and tea.

Two officials said the government was exploring three possible options to get around these legal hurdles.

One option, they said, could be an executive order under the National Disaster Management Act, which overrides all other laws and empowers the government to take steps to deal with an emergency situation.

Or, they said, the executive order could be passed under emergency provisions in the labour laws.

The second option, the officials said, could be to ask states to enforce longer working hours by amending rules under laws at their level.

The third possible option, they said, could be promulgation of ordinances to amend existing laws.

In Congress-ruled Rajasthan, an order issued by the state’s factories and boilers inspection department has already allowed factories that manufacture essential items to engage workers for 12 hours a day for the next three months.

The extra four hours of work will lead to a reduction in worker footfall by 33 per cent, the Rajasthan order said, thereby limiting movement of people for maintaining social-distancing protocols.

Prof. Amitabh Kundu, a labour economist, said the proposal to extend the working hours was another example of labour organisations and civil society ceding space to the government in a situation of national emergency.

Such provisions must be compensated financially, backed up by facilities for staying within the premises, if required, and should be time-bound, he said.

“The civil society currently is willing to withdraw and give the space to the government on many fronts. This could have serious implications in the long run. International experience suggests that when the State expands its space, it is reluctant to withdraw when the situation normalises,” Kundu said.

He cited examples, saying common people had remained silent spectators to police actions interfering with civil liberty in situations when there was no clarity on the principles of the lockdown.

Unorganised workers and migrants have often had problems even reaching their workplaces for essential services or while walking back home, Kundu said.

“It is unlikely that there will be serious objections to the increase in working hours in certain activities at the current time. This is a crisis situation. For supply of essential commodities, production has to start. The best thing would be to allow this for a specific period, say, till October 2020,” he said.

“After that, there should be a stocktaking of the labour regulations and administrative orders as also of the functioning of related institutions.”

A labour economist, who didn’t want to come on record, said changing a law to meet an immediate situation carried the risk of making it the new normal.

“This is the time to reduce the stress of workers, not increase it. By allowing 12 hours of work, the workers may not give their full capacity and productivity. There will be enough labour in supply after the lockdown. Increasing working hours is no way a solution when the unemployment rate is high,” he said.

According to the Periodic Labour Force Survey, the unemployment rate in India in 2018 was 6.1 per cent, the highest over the last four decades.

“It is like a remedy that is worse than the disease and has the possibility of becoming a norm or a (point of) reference in normal circumstances,” the economist said.

Another labour economist, Anoop Satpathy, said eight hours a day was the normal working hours determined by the International Labour Organisation, but India can deviate from it under unusual circumstances.

The ILO had last week projected that 400 million workers would become poorer in India because of the Covid-19 lockdown.

Former labour welfare commissioner G.L. Bhatia said any tweak in working hours should be strictly limited to a specific period.

“To deal with a difficult situation, the government can take extraordinary measures. But they should be time-bound,” Bhatia said.