The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : `Priority for social security in unorganised sector must'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jul 08, 2006

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

`Priority for social security in unorganised sector must'

Special Correspondent

Support from academics, NGOs, civil society groups holds key, says Prof. Arjun Sengupta

SHARING THE CONCERN: Arjun Sengupta, MP (right), with Ch. Hanumantha Rao (middle ) Chairman of CESS, and Mahendra S. Dev , Director of CESS, in Hyderabad on Friday.

HYDERABAD: The proposed scheme of social security for 300 million workers in the unorganised sector should be accorded topmost priority, now that it has been widely recognised as a rights-based approach, Arjun Sengupta, MP, said here on Friday.

Inaugurating a national consultation on `Social security for the unorganised workers,' Prof. Sengupta said the implementation of the commission's recommendations boiled down to political economy. He said there was a dire need for such a scheme at a time when the country was poised on high growth rate of 7 to 8 per cent and yet a substantial section of people remained poor and vulnerable.

The two-day consultation on the report submitted by the commission to the Prime Minister recently was organised by the Centre for Economic and Social Studies (CESS) here and others.

Rights-based scheme

Prof. Sengupta, who is chairman of the National Commission for

Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector (NCEUS), said he was aware of the resistance that the scheme could face though the implementation cost was a mere 0.5 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product at the end of five years.

"But when we believe it is a rights-based scheme, it should take precedence over such objections, provided, of course, the political economy wants it. We need a lot of support from academics, NGOs and civil society groups".

He disagreed with the argument that it was not implementable. "We learn and improve upon as we go by implementing it," he said. C.H. Hanumantha Rao, Chairman of CESS, said the scheme was least controversial and implementable at an affordable cost. K.P. Kannan, member, NCEUS, and S. Mahendra Dev, Director, CESS, spoke.

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