India’s federal government on Tuesday introduced two new labor code bills in the lower house of parliament. The Code on Wages and the Code on Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions are expected to affect about 500 million workers if passed.

The Code on Wages seeks to regulate wage and bonus payments in all places of employment where any industry, trade, business or manufacturing is carried out. It replaces the Payment of Wages Act, Minimum Wages Act, Payment of Bonus Act and the Equal Remuneration Act. The bill proposes to empower the federal government to fix the national floor wage for different regions. According to clause 9(2) of the bill, “the minimum rates of wages fixed by the appropriate Government under section 6 shall not be less than the floor wage and if the minimum rates of wages fixed by the appropriate Government earlier is more than the floor wage, then, the appropriate Government shall not reduce such minimum rates of wages fixed by it earlier.” In other words, the minimum wages must be higher than the floor wage. Clause 3(1) of the bill prohibits gender discrimination. “There shall be no discrimination in an establishment or any unit thereof among employees on the ground of gender in matters relating to wages by the same employer, in respect of the same work or work of a similar nature done by any employee,” it reads.

The Code on Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions will apply to establishments employing at least 10 workers, and to all mines and docks. It aims to repeal and replace 13 existing labor laws on safety, health and working conditions. These include the Factories Act, the Mines Act and the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act. It makes special provisions for certain types of establishments and classes of employees, such as factories, mines, and building and construction workers. If passed, the code will ensure that companies will not require multiple registrations, as they do currently under several distinct labor laws. The government has proposed a “one license, one registration, and one return” system for establishments under the proposed legislation. Once an establishment is registered under the Code on Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions, it will not need to register separately to comply with other labor laws.

Labor ministry officials say the reforms will help bolster India’s “ease of doing business” credentials. India’s federal government wants to project the country as an attractive destination for foreign investment. India is ranked seventy-seventh on the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index.

Opposition political parties and labor rights activists have criticized the proposed codes. They argue that the reforms unduly favor India’s corporate elite at the expense of the working class. Critics say the proposed labor law reforms will lead to a weak regulatory environment since the government’s supervisory role will be diluted.