Trinamul Congress MP Saket Gokhale on Friday urged the government to frame laws to ensure that employees in private sector have good working conditions, as he highlighted recent incidents of professionals dying allegedly due to work-related stress.

Raising the issue during Zero Hour in the Rajya Sabha, Gokhale referred to the deaths of Anna Sebastian, who allegedly died due to extreme work pressure, and Satish Nandgaonkar, a journalist who suffered a heart attack, allegedly due to a toxic work environment.

"After these two shocking incidents, there has been a groundswell of complaints on social media, with people in the private sector saying that there is often a toxic work culture, where employees are made to work long hours and are subjected to insults. A lot of this is happening in the private sector," he said.

"We are talking about private companies. Bengal means business; we have more than 4.5 lakh active companies, and the IT sector alone employs more than 2.6 lakh people. So, private sector reform is very important," he added.

"This year, corporate taxes were lower than income taxes. Who are the people paying the income tax? The people working in private companies," he said.

Gokhale also flagged the lack of provision for overtime pay in Indian companies. "There is no overtime pay provision in contracts in India. Employees are made to work 8-10-12 hours. Many employees work in client-facing roles, where they are subject to the whims of clients. There is a need for labor laws to regulate this," he said.

He also mentioned about the funds for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) being stalled for West Bengal.

"This toxic work culture and the deprivation of people are issues that this house needs to take seriously. People who are employed need a healthy work culture, and those who work deserve to be paid," he said.

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