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Journalism of Courage
The first meeting of the reconstituted National Advisory Council (NAC) on Friday reiterated its advise to the government to develop a comprehensive social security scheme for all unorganised sector workers that is estimated to cost upward of Rs 10,000 crore additional at the end of five years of the phased implementation suggested by it.
Given the fact that it had made these suggestions to the government in April this year,the NAC on Friday set a deadline of August 24 for the government to check the progress on it and inform the Council at its next meeting.
There is general agreement on broad elements of the integrated social security package,the implementation architecture and phasing of the coverage of the unorganised workers. The Council has advised the ministries to develop detailed features of the scheme and apprise the Council at its next meeting, said a press statement issued after the NAC meeting chaired by Sonia Gandhi.
The social security package as suggested by the NAC comprises a basic minimum life and disability cover,financial protection against ill-health,maternity benefit and pension upon retirement for all unorganised sector workers. This could be done by amalgamating the existing schemes for life and disability pensions (Ministry of Finance),health insurance through the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (Ministry of Labour) and maternity benefits (Ministry of Women and Child Development) into a single-window arrangement to the implemented in a phased manner.
Representatives from the Ministry of Labour and Department of Financial Services made presentations on the existing relevant schemes. Their presentation indicated the prevalence of BPL and APL distinction,so we impressed them upon the need to do away with this distinction of APL and BPL to amalgamate existing schemes into universal scheme of social security for informal sector workers, newly inducted NAC member Mihir Shah told The Indian Express.
Shah said the scheme will be contributory in nature where the workers will have the flexibility to choose the amount they want to contribute while the central government will match their contribution subject to a maximum limit (Rs 1,000 per person annually) with expectations that the state government will also match the contribution.
