will soon cease to be the privilege of a few. Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh’s Independence Day speech assured that new policies to protect
workers’ rights in the unorganized sector will soon be formulated.
During
his speech, the Prime Minister said, “Millions of Indians work in small
establishments, run their own little shops or offer their services on a
daily basis. They have neither a social safety net nor a sense of
economic security.
The PM announced
a plan to provide old age pension to all citizens above the age of 65
and living below the poverty line. Government will also provide life
and disability cover to one earning member in each family so that they
can face the consequences of injury or death. A health insurance model
will also be launched soon to save the poor from the steep cost of
medical care in the country. The announcement was in response to a
dharna by workers’ organisations in New Delhi on August 13 demanding
introduction of a Bill for social security for the unorganized sector.
As many as 5,000 workers of 21 workers’ organisations from Pune, Bihar,
Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Jaipur, Meerut, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Gurgaon
and Ghaziabad led by the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) and
the Angamehnati Kashtkari Sangharsh Samiti had demanded immediate
introduction of the Bill on social security for the unorganized sector
in the monsoon session of the Parliament.
The
workers demanded that the Government set up a National Social Security
Fund to provide registration and identity cards for all unorganized
workers, life and disability insurance, health insurance, maternity
benefits, old age pension and workers’ contribution. The organisations
want to include all categories and types of unorganized workers, not
only BPL ones, in the programme. The workers suggested a network of
workers’ facilitation centres to ensure a participatory mechanism and
clear implementation machinery. A report released by the National
Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganized Sector this month,
“Conditions of Work and Promotion of Livelihoods in Unorganised
Sector,” reveals that of 457 million workers in India, 395 million are
employed in unorganized sector – in areas such as agriculture,
construction, weaving and fishing – and “only 0.4 pc of 395 million
unorganized sector workers have access to any form of social security.”
A
delegation headed by Ela Bhatt, founder of SEWA, and Baba Adhav,
founder of Hamal Panchayat and president of the Maharashtra Hamal
Mahapadi Mahamandal, met Sonia Gandhi, Pranab Mukherjee and Oscar
Fernandez, minister of labour and employment.
What’s the Bill about…
*
It redefines worker so as to include all types of workers, not only
those who have a fixed employer. In so doing, it brings in all the self
employed workers as well as casual, contract, homebased etc
* It identifies each worker and gives him/her a unique social security number and social security card
* It offers a variety of social security benefits to the unorganized
worker. These would include, health insurance, maternity benefit and
pensions. As these schemes become successful, the trust and
participation of workers’ builds up, and more funds come in, a variety
of different benefits can be included such as children’s education,
housing, skill-building etc
* It binds the Central Government to providing a minimum amount of benefits and funds
*
It creates a structure, an architecture, that works with but does not
rely solely on the Government system. It creates a participatory
structure that builds on already existing civil society, government and
semi-government organizations which have a good record
* It
encourages the unorganized workers to organize around the social
security structures and benefits, creating a voice and space for them
Source by cities.expressindia.com
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