Sengupta panel wants social security in unorganised sector

By IANS

New Delhi : An official panel Thursday recommended a minimum level of social security in its 13-point action plan for the welfare of 395 million workers in the unorganised sector, constituting 86 percent of India’s total workforce.


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The National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector (NCEUS) headed by Arjun Sengupta, former Economic Adviser to late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, has prepared a 376-page report and recommendations.

Prescribing four packages for the unorganised sector, the panel has said there was need to “create a social floor that nobody is allowed to fall below”.

The four packages include separate protective measures for unorganised workers, marginal and small farmers, non-agricultural sector and measures to expand employment and improve employability.

Unlike organised sector workers, those in the unorganised sector – including small-time labourers, landless and marginal farmers and daily wage earners among others – do not have access to job benefits.

Appreciating the government’s flagship National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) scheme for providing jobs in rural areas, Sengupta told reporters here: “The 100 days cap (for employment in a year) should be removed and it should be combined with other employment schemes.

“This sector needs to be properly taken care of for the alternate is only starvation,” said Sengupta, who had on July 10 submitted a report to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recommending the enactment by parliament of two bills to ameliorate the problems of the unorganised sector.

“This is not an indictment of the government programme but only suggestions that it should be properly taken care of.”

The proposed legislation provides for a National Security Scheme with an outlay of Rs.194.31 billion for agricultural workers and Rs.129.54 billion for non-agricultural workers.

It proposes another scheme under the National Minimum Social Security Scheme, providing hospitalisation benefits for the worker and the family at Rs.15,000 per year and sickness allowance for 15 days beyond three days of hospitalisation at Rs.50 per day. It also recommends Rs.1,000 as maternity benefit.

With no apex institution in the central government or in the states to monitor the unorganised sector, Sengupta said: “There was need to strengthen the Planning Commission and ensure that it plays a major role in the improvement of this sector so that there is a focal point.”

The panel recommended that the target for the self-employment schemes should be raised to at least five million per year as against about two million per year proposed by the 11th Five-Year Plan (2007-12).

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