New project on Social Security in India

Tags: India , Knowledge Platform
Additional tags: Social security , Labour , India

The Long Road to Social Security: Assessing and Monitoring the Implementation of Social Security for the Working Poor in India's Informal Economy is a knowledge project on social security provisions for workers in the informal sector of the economy in India. This project is a cooperation between the Amsterdam School for Social science Research, the Centre for Development Studies in Trivandrum, India, and Hivos. The project focuses on monitoring the implementation of minimal welfare provisions in India for workers in India's informal economy.

Until the end of 2008, providing a modicum of social security to the workers in India’s informal economy that overwhelmingly comprises of small farmers and casual wage workers in rural areas and the self-employed and casual wage workers in urban areas did not receive adequate national priority either in terms of policy or legislation. However, this became a national agenda following its incorporation in the election manifesto of the presently ruling United Progressive Alliance led by the Congress Party in 2004.

When it was voted to power, one of the first steps taken was to appoint a National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector (NCEUS) that was mandated, inter alia, to examine and recommend social security measures for the workers in the informal sector. The Report on Social Security for Unorganised Workers was the first report submitted by this Commission in 2006 that contained a comprehensive National Minimum Social Security scheme along with a draft bill for consideration by the Indian Parliament. A considerably watered down version of this bill was subsequently introduced by the UPA Government in Parliament that was thoroughly examined by a Parliamentary Standing Committee (PSC) consisting of representatives from all major parties in the parliament. The Parliamentary Standing Committee not only amended the draft bill by restoring all the recommendations of the NCEUS but also added a few more to enlarge the coverage with a strict time frame for implementation. However, the government did not accept any substantive recommendations of the PSC and preferred to reintroduce the original version with some minor amendments that was subsequently passed by the parliament and entitled the Unorganised Workers Social Security Bill.

 

While national legislative framework has come into place, the initiative is now left to the agencies and departments of the central government to introduce social security schemes for the welfare of the huge workforce and to reduce their vulnerability and create the beginning of a safety net which these people require in order to better cope with health risks and old age in particular. Interestingly, a health insurance scheme covering only the households below the officially determined poverty line has been enthusiastically responded to by the states for implementation in their respective regions.

 

The aim of this knowledge project is not to get engaged in large-scale surveys but to operationalise the project in a number of case studies in different parts of the country (Punjab, Gujarat, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala) both in urban and rural locations of the informal sector economy. The research is meant to be action-oriented and will focus on findings which can be fed back in the policy process of official agencies and civic stake-holders such as trade unions and civil society organisations. Thereto the researchers will actively dialogue with these stakeholders throughout the process. Generating knowledge is an important objective of this research project and is part of a comprehensive approach to knowledge processes including dissemination, strategy formation and application.