NCW for social security cover for domestic helps

The Govt may soon make it mandatory for you to pay for providing social security for your domestic help on the lines of companies paying PF to their employees, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Jun 21, 2008, 23:36:03 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

Prefer HTon Google

Share via

Copy link

The government may soon make it mandatory for you to pay for providing social security for your domestic help on the lines of companies paying provident fund to their employees.

The National Commission for Women is working in a draft law that provides for social security to all domestic workers. “It would be similar to society security provided to unorganized labourers recently introduced in Parliament,” a commission official said.

Under the proposed scheme, the employer and the servant will have to make matching contribution for the social security fund to be managed by a specially appointed government authority for the job.

The Commission is looking at 10 per cent of the domestic worker's salary as the matching contribution. This would not mean any reduction in the salary. The employer will have to pay his contribution over and above the salary. “The money will have to be deposited in an account in the name of the domestic help with the authority,” the official said.

The bill, which is in the final stages of conception, still has to look into the issue that how and who would deposit the money. “Getting the money deposited through placement agencies, who will have to register with the authority, is one way-out,” the official said. Each domestic worker will get a registration number having universal acceptability all over the country. It has been proposed to tackle the issue of migration of domestic helps from one city to another, an NCW official said.

The proposed law aims at covering all domestic workers, including full-time and part-time helps. “Helps registered under the scheme for 15 years, would be entitled to the benefits like pension. The domestic workers will not be allowed to withdraw money from the account for 15-20 years,” the official said.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

Catch every big hit, every wicket with Crickit, a one stop destination for Live Scores, Match Stats, Infographics & much more. Explore now!

Stay updated with all top Cities including, Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai and more across India. Stay informed on the latest happenings in World News along with Delhi Election 2025 and Delhi Election Result 2025 Live, New Delhi Election Result Live, Kalkaji Election Result Live at Hindustan Times.