New Delhi: Even though the Constitution
provides for suitable legislations for protecting the rights
of workers in the informal sector, Chief Justice K G
Balakrishnan on Monday said identifying beneficiaries and
implementation of statutory schemes are a "challenge".
"It is common knowledge that construction workers are
engaged for work on ad-hoc basis and there is hardly any
consolidation among them.
"The Building and Construction Workers (Regulation of
Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1996 was enacted in
order to respond to special needs of those working in these
sectors. The challenge of course has been the implementation
of the statutory schemes (provided under the Act) since there
are numerous practical hurdles in properly identifying the
beneficiaries and ensuring that earmarked funds reach the
right persons," Balakrishnan said.
The Chief Justice, who was delivering the Second B R
Ambedkar Foundation lecture on Constitutional values and
promotion of labour welfare at Vigyan Bhawan here, also said,
"Needless to say, millions of unorganised workers are in dire
need of a stable and reliable social security regime."
He added that the Unorganised Workers' Social Security Act
contemplates delivery of benefits to unorganised workers in
instances of sickness disability, maternity, old age and
death.
"The machinery for implementing these schemes will
consist of a National Social Security Board and state level
social security boards. These will perform the tasks of
supervising the collection of contributions and maintenance of
social security funds and ensuring proper disbursal of
benefits," Balakrishnan said.
However, as a word of caution, the Chief Justice said,
"While this statutory scheme is laudable, one can foresee some
problems with its implementation. The foundational problem
will be that of comprehensively identifying the intended
beneficiaries. There may also be difficulties in registering
the workers on account of suppression of facts by employers
and contractors."
The problem, he said, can be avoided by conferring
benefits in a cashless form and relying on the unique
identification cards of the intended beneficiaries.
Lauding the efforts of B R Ambedkar on drafting the
Constitution, Balakrishnan said, "The vision and foresight
shown by the drafting committee under the leadership of
Ambedkar has stood the test of time.
"The textual incorporation of principles such as rule of
law, equal protection before the law and a wide array of
individual and group rights have proved to be the
pre-conditions for creating the world's largest democracy."
He added that though caste-based discrimination and
violence still remains a fact of life in India today, there
has been considerable progress for the historically
disadvantaged sections.
Speaking on the occasion, Minister for Social Justice
and Empowerment Mukul Wasnik said, "The vision and values of
the Constitution are facing challenges. It is up to us to
safeguard the Constitution and its values from such
challenges. As has been said the Constitution has not failed
us. We have to ensure that we do not fail the Constitution."
Besides D Napoleon, the Minister of State for Social
Justice and Empowerment, the lecture was also attended by the
Secretary in the ministry, K M Acharya, senior officials of
the ministry and trustees of the B R Ambedkar Foundation.
PTI
First Published: Monday, November 30, 2009, 22:37