SHRI ASHOK PRADHAN FOR STATE INTERVENTION TO PROVIDE SOCIAL SECURITY
TO WORKERS IN THE UNORGANIZED SECTOR
The workers
in the unorganized sector, who comprise approximately 92% of the
country’s 400 million work force, should be given pivotal attention
through state intervention. This was stated by the Minister of
State for Labour Shri Ashok Pradhan while inaugurating a workshop
on ‘Social Security for Unorganized Sector : Emergent initiatives’
at Noida in Gautam Budh Nagar District in Uttar Pradesh today.
He said that this is particularly relevant in the context of expanding
unorganised sector in recent years. The Minister called for concerted
efforts to provide minimum level of protection to workers in the
unorganized sector. Shri Pradhan said that this is necessary for
ensuring harmonious labour relations and increase the willingness
to work. He said that during the last five decades we have faltered
in extending the social security cover to the unorganized sector
and the workshop should try to look into reasons for this. Shri
Pradhan said that the existing social security schemes do not
percolate down fully to the beneficiaries. He urged the participants
to explore innovative methods for extension and financing of social
security schemes.
Earlier
welcoming the participants the Director of V.V. Giri National
Labour Institute, Shri Uday Kumar Varma said that the only way
to mitigate the insecurity of living generated by market economy
is to evolve a rational and sustainable system of social insurance
and social assistance. He said that there have been recently several
suggestions on the funding of social security schemes. Shri Varma
said that recently a Planning Commission paper proposed imposing
a special cess of one to three percent on income of top 12% households
or on specified central taxes to meet the financial cost of extending
social security cover to workers in the unorganized sector. He
said that the paper also suggested that the Government could consider
setting aside 1% of GDP as the initial corpus for the proposed
national workers welfare fund to operate the scheme. This alone
would amount about Rs.11,000/- crore approximately.
The one-
day workshop has been organized by the V.V. Giri National Labour
Institute to discuss some of the recent initiatives on social
security that have been taken by certain organizations to cover
workers in the unorganized sector. The workshop assumes importance
as more and more workers are being shifted to the unorganized
sector due to increased casualisation of workers in the organised
sector.
