Cabinet to consider changes to Bill on workers’ social security

The amendments proposed are in tune with the suggestions made by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Labour and Employment to which the Bill was referred after its introduction in the Rajya Sabha last year.

According to the sources, the Union Minister for Labour would now chair the National Security Advisory Board, to be constituted under the Act, and the panel would also include MPs as its members. Earlier, the chairperson of the board was to be appointed by the Central government.

The strength of the board will now go up to 34 from 31 members, with the inclusion of two MPs from Lok Sabha and one from Rajya Sabha. At the state level, state’s labour and employment minister will chair the advisory board.

Sources said the Government is also looking into the Parliamentary Standing Committee’s suggestion that the National Security Advisory Board should be termed as “Apex Board”.

The Board’s role is to recommend to the Government suitable schemes for different sections of unorganised workers, advise the Government on administration of the Act, monitor the schemes, review the expenditure from the funds under various schemes and review the progress of registration and issuance of identity cards to workers.

The most important modification would be renaming of the Bill as Unorganised Workers Social Security Bill to ensure that unorganised workers in the organised sector are also covered, the sources said.

Further, provisions for redressal of grievances and creation of workers facilitation centres in states have also been incorporated.

Another key amendment will ensure that the Government would not be able to exclude any of the existing welfare schemes through a notification. “The government can only rationalise and amend the schemes from now on,” the sources said.

The Labour Ministry is also examining whether volunteers, working under various welfare schemes like Aanganwadis, could be covered under the proposed Bill.

However, two of the main demands of various trade unions — creation of a national fund for institutionalising implementation of the scheme and setting a timeframe for covering all identified unorganised workers — have not been included.