New project on Social Security in 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...

The social question, who cares?

While the Shining India operation in the preceding years had increased the wellbeing of the already better-off, the United Progressive Alliance committed itself to ensure ‘the welfare and well-being of all workers, particularly those in the unorganised sector, who constitute more than 93% of our workforce'. A National Commission set up in September 2004 reviewed the status of the unorganised/ínformal sector in India. The Commission — chaired by Arjun Sengupta and with only two members (K.P. K...

The challenge of universal coverage for the working poor in India

The paper by K.P. Kannan deals with the challenge of universal coverage for the working poor in India. He draws attention to the fact that both basic social security and contingent social security are important from the point of view of the working poor. The fact that social security entitlements as part of one’s employment is confined only to less than 10 percent of India’s work force points to the enormity of the problem of coverage and the long road that lie ahead. While welcoming the two...

Afluence, vulnerability and the provision of social security

09/05/2011 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 widespr...

Contingent social security schemes for unorganised workers in India

As per the estimates provided by the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector (NCEUS), the unorganised workers constitute 92.37 percent of the Indian workforce – out of which, 86.01 percent eke out their living by performing various activities related to the unorganised sector whereas 6.36 percent work as unorganised workers in the organised segment. Exposure to various vulnerabilities is the common plight of these workers.