PM okays panel on enterprises in the unorganised sector

After bringing back some familiar bureaucrats onto key panels, the UPA Government has put, amongst others, a clutch of enterprising women on...

After bringing back some familiar bureaucrats onto key panels, the UPA Government has put, amongst others, a clutch of enterprising women on one of its newly-created commissions. The PM on Tuesday, approved the list of members of the National Commission on Enterprises in the unorganised/informal sector, the setting up of which, was approved by the Cabinet last month.

The Commission is chaired by Dr Arjun Sengupta, who will have the rank of a Cabinet Minister. Four women have found a place on its Advisory Board — activist Madhu Kishwar, Jyoti Naik (who heads the Mahila Griha Udyog), Mirai Chatterjee (of SEWA), and Sheela Bhalla.

Other members on the Commission’s Advisory Board are Nachiket Mor, executive director, ICICI; Joginder Kumar, president, Federation of Tiny and Small Industries; writer P. Sainath; activist Swami Agnivesh.

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Besides these members, the Commission will have two full-time members. The Commission will also have two part-time members — Planning Commission Member, Prof B.N. Yugandhar and Bibek Debroy, director, Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies.

The Commission, which is intended to act as a watchdog for the informal sector, has been given a nine-point charter by the Government and advised to submit periodic reports. It is expected to reccommend measures to improve productivity in the sector and generate large-scale employment, besides enhancing competitiveness in the emerging global environment.

It has also been asked to suggest the legal and policy environment that should govern the unorganised sector and identify innovative legal and financial instruments to promote growth.

Ritu Sarin

Ritu Sarin is Executive Editor (News and Investigations) at The Indian Express group. Her areas of specialisation include internal security, money laundering and corruption. Sarin is one of India’s most renowned reporters and has a career in journalism of over four decades. She is a member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) since 1999 and since early 2023, a member of its Board of Directors. She has also been a founder member of the ICIJ Network Committee (INC). She has, to begin with, alone, and later led teams which have worked on ICIJ’s Offshore Leaks, Swiss Leaks, the Pulitzer Prize winning Panama Papers, Paradise Papers, Implant Files, Fincen Files, Pandora Papers, the Uber Files and Deforestation Inc. She has conducted investigative journalism workshops and addressed investigative journalism conferences with a specialisation on collaborative journalism in several countries. ... Read More

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