Condition of 349 mn workers 'utterly deplorable': Report

Over 394.9 million workers constituting 86 per cent of the country's labour force are in the unorganised sector and work under "utterly deplorable conditions" with "extremely few livelihood options", a report by the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector (NCEUS) has said.

The report, "Conditions of Work and Promotion of Livelihoods in the Unorganised Sector" said the condition of these left-outs of the economic boom in the country was similar, whether they were in the agriculture or non-agriculture sectors. The report says small and marginal farmer households account for 84 per cent of the farm sector and are forced to spend more than what they earn. While on average, these families earn Rs 2,115 per month, their spending is Rs 2,770, which consequently pulls them into debt trap, the report says.

The grimness is evident as the report says that 49 per cent of the farmers in the country are in debt, with Andhra Pradesh leading the charts with 82 per cent, Tamil Nadu 75 per cent and Punjab 65 per cent. Even in ownership of land, 90 per cent households dependent on agriculture are landless or have less then one hectare of holding.

Highlighting the seriousness of the issue, being reflected in the land agitation movements in several parts of the country like Andhra Pradesh, NCEUS has called for immediate land reforms. "There is a strong case for redistributive land reforms which improves the access of the rural poor to land through expropriation and distribution of surplus land, tenurial reform and better operation of the land lease market and the land sales market," Arjun Sengupta, chairman, NCEUS said.

Even in the non-farm sector, the report says 21 per cent to 46 per cent of men and 57 per cent to 83 per cent of women casual workers in the country, engaged in various activities like construction, mining and services, are working with payments below the prescribed minimum wages.

The commission, while categorising 836 million Indians as "the common people" who live on incomes varying from Rs 9 (poverty line) to Rs 20 per day, remarked that the euphoria of the buoyant economy' was not able to touch this lot constituting 77 per cent of the population.

Seventy-nine per cent of the unorganised workers in the country belong to this group of "the common people" earning less than Rs 20 a day, NCEUS said. Much of this plight of the unorganised worker is due to a lack of comprehensive and appropriate legislation and absence of targeted programmes.