Life insurance for unorganised sector soon

Govt plans a Bill to provide insurance cover, healthcare and old age security to over 43.3 cr workers, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: May 23, 2007, 24:51:59 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Over 43.3 crore workers in the unorganised sector would soon get life and disability insurance cover, health protection and old age security, a promise made in the National Common Minimum Programme (NCMP) of the UPA government.

Country’s first social security scheme would have a legislative backing, a cabinet note of the Ministry of Labour and Employment states. The Cabinet would soon consider Unorganised Sector Workers’ Social Security Bill, 2007.

The government would set up a national and a state level advisory boards to frame policies to notify welfare schemes for the unorganised sector. "Comprehensive schemes in core areas identified by the Group of Ministers would be the first priority of the boards," a senior government official said.

The boards will also formulate schemes for injury benefit, housing, education for the workers’ children, worker’s skill up-gradation, their children’s marriage and old age homes. The funds to run the schemes will either be shared by the Central or the state government or borne individually by any of the governments.

The full-fledged offices of the boards will function through district panchayats in rural areas and urban local bodies in urban areas, the bill states.

Workers earning less than Rs 6,500 in the agriculture sector, in poultry and fishing and employed in unincorporated firms of less than 10 workers and more than 18 years of age will be eligible for registration for the national social security schemes. To earn benefit from the schemes, the registered person will have to regularly make payment of his or her contribution.

Each registered worker will get a smart card with a unique identification number entitling him to the schemes implemented by the advisory boards.

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

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