Panel for drastic changes in unorganised sector Bill

From the name and definition to key contents, the parliamentary standing committee on labour has proposed significant changes in all aspects of the unorganised sector welfare Bill. The proposals are so vast that the committee, in departure from the past practice, has prepared a substitute Bill in its report.

The committee, headed by CPI's Suravaram Sudhakar Reddy, will table the report in Parliament followed by a press conference on Monday.

Business Standard has learnt that among other proposals, the committee has suggested a 'National Social Security Fund ', a dedicated system to ensure smooth sustenance of various welfare schemes. Although the committee has not specified any size, this fund is proposed to be set up by the states and the Centre at national and regional levels.

The standing committee has also modified the government's proposal to set up advisory boards. It will call upon the government to give administrative powers to these boards to implement various schemes for the workers. The boards will have ministers as its heads and MPs and MLAs as members apart from others.

The Arjun Sengupta Committee had initially recommended two separate bills for the agriculture and non-agriculture sector as the nature of work and earnings are different in each case. The standing committee has not asked for separate legislation but has asked the government to incorporate the essence of Sengupta's recommendations, has recommended changes in the bill's name and its definition of the unorganised sector.

It has suggested that the "Unorganised Sector Workers' Social Security Bill, 2007" be rechristened by dropping the word 'sector'. The committee is also of the opinion that landless farmers and those with less than two hectares of land should be categorically mentioned in the definition of unorganised workers.

While the original bill mentioned no time frame for implementation of schemes for all workers, the standing committee has recommended a specific time frame for the government to ensure all unorganised workers get minimum social security benefit.

Formulation of schemes was an optional task for the central government in the bill, but Reddy's committee has made it mandatory. It has also clearly spelt out five standards for minimum social security "" medical care, sickness, unemployment, old age, invalidity and survivor benefit.

The unorganised sector bill, one of the pet proposals of Congress president Sonia Gandhi was tabled in the Rajya Sabha on the last day of the monsoon session. It didn't mention any penal provisions. This has been rejected by the standing committee, which has asked the government to include adequate penal measures.