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| INDIA As of a 2004-05 National Sample Survey India has a workforce of around 459 million, of which approximately 26 million (6%) is engaged in the organised sector. Although a uniform definition of the “organised sector” does not exist it is often also known as “formal sector” or the “formal economy”. This sector basically consists of workers who have a direct employer-employee relationship within an organisation. Social security benefits, such as healthcare and old age pensions, for workers in the organized sector are provided through five Central Acts. However, the unorganised sector, also often called the “informal sector” or the “informal economy” is excluded from such social security benefits. According to the Government of India the unorganised sector is defined as “an enterprise owned by individuals or self-employed workers and engaged in the production or sale of goods or providing services of any kind whatsoever, and where the enterprise employs workers, the number of such workers is less than ten.” The unorganised sector consists of labourers ranging from agricultural labourers, beedi rollers, newspaper and fruit vendors to rickshaw pullers and handicraft artisans. Unorganized sector workers contribute to an estimated 60 per cent of the country’s national economic output. They are a scattered lot with low skill-levels, usually coupled with illiteracy. This reduces their bargaining power and adversely affects their quality of life. The nature of their employment is mostly seasonal. They are also often bound by regressive social customs such as child marriage, working as indentured labour, etc., which hamper their already low productivity. Since 94 % of the total labour force works in the unorganised sector, the large majority of Indian workers do not have adequate social protection. Various ministries and other government agencies offer social security programmes, but benefit coverage is limited and very few workers in the unorganised sector or their families are included. As they do not have adequate access to state mechanisms of social security, the workers in the unorganised sector and their dependants face a heightened threat of poverty resulting from illness, old age, accidents or death. |
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