Extend rural job guarantee scheme to urban areas: official panel

09 May 2009
New Delhi:

New Delhi:With 93 percent of India's workforce in the informal sector, an official panel has recommended the extension of the rural job guarantee programme to urban areas and called for a national minimum social security net.

The National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector has also called for a country-wide minimum wage and the laying down of minimum conditions of work to create a social floor for the vast segment of unprotected workers in the country.

The commission said the share of informal workers will continue at around 92-93 percent till 2017.

In the report, "Challenge of Employment in India - An Informal Economy Perspective", which has been presented to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the commission has also suggested a minimum wage of Rs.100 per day at current prices, instead of a current freeze on wage rates.

Its other recommendations include:

• National labour code to simplify multiplicity if labour legislations
• Effective enforcement of work conditions and social security
• Improvement of labour administration
• Greater access to credit, skills, marketing and raw material for self-employed
• Fresh strategy to promote industrial clusters
• Creation of national funds for informal sector that can add 50 million new jobs
• Introduction of an unemployment insurance scheme