The Hindu Business Line : Two Bills mooted for welfare of unorganised sector workers

THE National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector has recommended that the Government bring in two Bills for the welfare of workers in the unorganised sector.

The two Bills are the Unorganised Sector Workers Social Security Bill, 2005 and the Unorganised Sector Workers (Conditions of Work and Livelihood Promotion) Bill, 2005.

The acting Chairman of the commission, Dr K. Jayashankar, told newspersons here on Saturday that the rationale underlying the division of the Bills is to ensure a smooth and effective implementation of the proposed legislation, since the objectives sought to be achieved through the Bills are different. The Unorganised Sector Workers Social Security Bill, 2005 will cover all workers in the unorganised sector with a monthly income of Rs 5,000 and below. The number of workers is estimated to be around 30 crore. The financial implications of the proposed social security scheme for all the 30 crore workers would be to the tune of Rs 32,850 crore, of which the Union Government's share would be Rs 17,548 crore and that of the State Government Rs 5,010 crore.

This adds up to a total of Rs 22,558 crore, which is equivalent to 0.8 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP) in 2004-05. Taking into account administrative expenses as well as expenses for capacity building and related activities, the upper limit of the public outlay for the scheme would not exceed one per cent of the GDP, Dr Jayashankar added.

The Unorganised Sector Workers (Conditions of the Work and Livelihood Promotion) Bill, 2005 seeks to address the conditions of work for wage workers in the unorganised sector to provide a basic minimum standard on hours of work, payment of minimum wages and adherence to Bonded Labour Abolition Act and Child Labour Prohibition & Regulation Act, he said.

As for self-employed workers, the Draft Bill has proposed various measures for the protection and promotion of livelihoods. These relate to the provision of credit, right to common property and natural resources, use of public space to engage in economic activities and the promotion of associations of self-employed workers.

The two Bills taken together would go a long way in creating a much needed floor for providing a measure of social security as well as minimum acceptable standards of work conditions. These Bills would be complementary to the Bill on employment guarantee, he said.

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