Government today said that it has taken a series of initiatives to make health care provisions for workers more "effective and consumer responsive" including convergence of three main social security schemes on a single smart card for unorganised sector.
Union Labour Minister Narendra Singh Tomar told the Lok Sabha in a written reply today that for the organised sector, it has been proposed to "allot a Universal Account Number (UAN) to the members of EPFO (Employees Provident Fund Organisation) to ensure portability across jobs and geographic area."
"In recent times, ministry has taken a series of initiatives to make health care for workers more effective and consumer responsive. For the unorganised sector, the ministry is working on convergence of three main social security schemes on a single smart card and a single point of service," Tomar said.
He said that Rashtriya Swastha Bima Yojna (RSBY) is also being revamped to ensure that its outcomes for the benificieries in terms of reduced medical expenses and loss of wage are achieved.
He said that the World Development report 2014 mentions the need for greater labour market flexibility and lower cost of compliance for encouraging higher productivity and employment generation in the Indian context.
"It refers to the need for promoting formalisation, simplification and modernisation of labour laws including the Industrial Disputes Act, improving administrative procedures, bringing greater labour flexibility in labour law provisions and minimising compliance cost to reduce regulatory burden in India," he said.
As per Employment-Unemployment survey conducted by NSSO in 2004-05, the total employment in both organised and unorganised sector was 45.91 crore out of which 43.26 crore (94.23 percent) was in unorganised sector.
As per the same survey by NSSO in 2011-12, the total employment in both the sectors was 47.41 crore out of which 44.51 crore (93.88 percent) was in unorganised sector.
"Hence there is an increase of 1.24 crore in terms of absolute number of unorganised workers. This reflects decline of 0.35 per cent in employment in unorganised sector," he said.
