Interim Budget 2024: India could extend some form of social security to millions of domestic workers ahead of general elections set for April-May. This could be a step toward universal welfare payments as envisaged under the Social Security Code, 2020, which has not been rolled out yet.
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Some benefits being considered include a minimum wage, pension, medical insurance, maternity benefits and provident fund. “We are considering all options but a final call will be taken after we have exact number of domestic workers in India,” a senior government official said.
The Social Security Code includes domestic staff under the ‘wage worker’ category.
Cost implications
This implies domestic workers will be entitled to wage-related benefits or government-defined wages once the code is implemented.
The code subsumes existing social security laws and schemes, including the Employees’ Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Provisions (EPF & MP) Act, Employees State Insurance (ESIC) Act and the Unorganised Workers’ Social Security Act, among others. Social security schemes under these acts will therefore continue to be available under the code once it’s implemented.
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All states have not yet framed rules under the four labour codes that the Centre had drafted in 2019-20.
The Social Security Code is one of these four. The Centre wants all states to come on board for a smooth rollout of the labour codes.
According to the official cited above, the proposed scheme will lay out the benefits, the rate of contribution and the share of the beneficiary, employer and government to the total.
The Labour Bureau, under the ministry of labour and employment, has conducted an all-India domestic workers’ survey and is in the process of finalising it. The government will work on cost implications after examining the data and work profile before arriving at the contours of the proposed social security benefits.
The survey’s findings will also provide information on the various socio-economic aspects of domestic workers, including size of household, social group and economic activity.
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e-Shram portal
The Aadhaar-seeded e-Shram portal is a database for unorganised workers, including domestic employees.
More than 292 million unorganised workers have been registered on the e-Shram portal up to December 15, 2023, since its launch in 2021.
As per the National Domestic Workers’ Movement, the official estimate is 4.2 million. Unofficially, domestic workers are pegged at over 50 million with 75% of them being women, experts said.
Labour economist KR Shyam Sundar said including domestic workers may be problematic.
“There is no clear definition of domestic workers under the code, which has clearly defined building workers and platform workers for the purpose of social security benefits,” he said.
“This means that domestic workers are not entitled to social security benefits provided under the code.”
