Afluence, vulnerability and the provision of social security

Working Paper 3 of the Long Road to Social Security

Tags: India , Civil Society Building
Additional tags: Afluence , Vulnerability , Punjab , Social security

This paper by Varinder Jain is a study in assessing a sub-national state’s concern for the working poor in India. The state that he has selected is the prosperous state of Punjab in North West India. Despite Punjab’s relative prosperity both in rural and urban areas, what Jain finds is the pervasiveness of vulnerable livelihoods among large segments of the working persons and their households. While there are a few state-funded social security schemes in Punjab they hardly address the widespread problem of economic vulnerability. He traces the apathy of the state towards the conditions of the working masses to the nature of politics and the dominance of the farmers’ lobby in the state. On the other side collective organization of workers have become weaker over time both in rural and urban areas.

Background

By bringing in the context of state’s affluence and the pervasive vulnerability across agricultural and non-agricultural segments, it portrays a situation that could have led to the emergence of a sound social security system in the state. However, an observation of the minimal social welfare effort made by the state in terms of its policy and expenditure encourages us to unveil the nature  of politico-social dynamism in the state. By doing so, we learn that neither the political power structure is concerned about the plight of vulnerable masses nor the society can pressurise the state collectively, due to inherent religious, caste, class and political conflicts, for instituting a sound social security system.

Till recent past, the state of Punjab with its agriculture-based model of economic growth has been at the forefront due to its remarkable economic attainments. Owing to the growth in its primary, secondary and tertiary segments and a decline in the decadal growth rate of population, the post-reorganisation phase has witnessed a rising trend of state’s per capita income not only in absolute sense but also in a relative comparison with other major states – till 2001-02, the state of Punjab has consistently maintained its highest position (Table A1). Such economic prosperity has also got reflected in the high levels of monthly per capita consumer expenditure over various quinquennial surveys of household consumer expenditure conducted by the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) (Table A2). Moreover, a very low level of absolute poverty corroborates the affluence attained by the Punjab state since its reorganization (as discussed in section two).

However, the economic growth process being largely exclusionary and inequitable has left a vast set of masses as vulnerable and poor, at least in a relative sense. The incidence of vulnerability is pervasive across both the agricultural and the non-agricultural segments (as discussed in third section). The experience of economic affluence on the one hand and a vast set of vulnerable masses on the other portray a situation that could have led, in a democratic set-up, to the emergence of a welfare state with sound social security system (some arguments are discussed in section four). But, has it been so? Could the state in Punjab provide some sort of social security cover to its vulnerable masses? How effective has it been? How sound has been its policies and institutional structure as far as the question of protecting the vulnerable masses is concerned? are some of the questions that arise at the very outset of observing the simultaneous presence of affluence and vulnerability in the state. The questions are explored (in section five) by not only appraising the existing social security policy framework but also evaluating the (absolute and relative) magnitude of social welfare effort made by the state since 1980-81. The subsequent section (six) is devoted to outline the forces shaping the limited social welfare effort made by the state and the final section provides a few concluding remarks.