1. PROTECTING THE VULNERABLE
Fine tuning the identification process
Team Details :: REDEE
University Institute of Engineering and Technology, Panjab University,
Chandigarh
Anshul Goyal
Ginni Kakkar
Goyam Jain
Neha Srivastava
Sanya Gupta

2. Understanding the problem
37.8
46.4
63.5
91.2 92.4 93.1
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
1999-2000 2004-2005 2009-2010
Formal All
Protecting the Vulnerable: Providing social welfare to informal sector workers
The percentage of informal workers in the non-agricultural
sector has steadily increased.
The percentage of such workers with access to social security
has declined.
Informalisation has grown even in the organized sector, and
even in the public sector and in public ltd. companies.
Only 6% of unorganized workers are estimated a receiving
protective social security
Social protection measures are critical for informal workers, particularly for women workers, to protect them
from contingencies and deprivation.

3. Current Scenario
Protecting the Vulnerable: Providing social welfare to informal sector workers
Over 290
million, that
is 92% is in
the
unorganized
sector
Of the 317
million
working
population
Low wages,
insecurity of
work and
income
Chief characteristics
Poor and
hazardous
working
conditions
Working
conditions
are
damaging
and
detrimental
Condition of Women
Women
workers are
largely
concentrated
in Informal
sectors
Social
Security
Health
Security
Food
Security
Shelter
Security
Education
Security

4. Current Scenario
Protecting the Vulnerable: Providing social welfare to informal sector workers
Unorganized Workers
Social Security Act
•Legislated in 2008, the Unorganized Workers Social Security
Act, appended 10 schemes.
Health Security
•The NRHM, 2006, aimed at strengthening infrastructure,
provision of qualified personnel and primary health services in
the rural areas.
Rashtriya Swathya
Bima Yojna
•Initiated in 2008, it is a health care insurance package that
covers up to `30,000 for BPL card holders
Aadhaar
•The nation wide UID project, aims at providing UID against
biometric and demographic information.
•Already enrolled 250 million, it aims to enroll 1.2 billion by 2014.
•The Aadhaar project has widely helped in implementing
direct transfers, NREGA scholarships, and has also
empowered women.

5. Key Issues
Protecting the Vulnerable: Providing social welfare to informal sector workers
Target Groups
•Designing simple and easily accessible social protection schemes for the target groups.
•There have been a lot of complaints, and difficulties that include the demand of a number of documents to prove eligibility, or
the inconvenience of foregoing a day’s wage standing in long queues.
Lack of Technology
•When it comes to covering a large number of people, the traditional paper based methods are very slow
•Often the target group is illiterate and find it difficult to understand the documentary requirements
•Traditional methods are time consuming for the beneficiaries and entails loss of time that could be utilized for earning daily wage
•Traditional methods are more susceptible to abuse and corruption, and monitoring and evaluation is more difficult.
Women’s Advancement
•An additional challenge is the recognition of all the barriers to women’s advancement in the labor market and conscious
mainstreaming of gender needs into all aspects of policy and program design for social protection.
•Health risks (e.g. infant mortality, disease)
•Life cycle risks (e.g. childbearing, divorce, widowhood)
•Household economic risks (e.g. increased expenditure for social obligations such as marriage and funerals)
•Social risks (e.g. exclusion, domestic violence, crime)

6. Protecting the Vulnerable: Providing social welfare to informal sector workers
Migration
•Migration of informal workers poses another major consideration
•Often branded as Bangladeshis, and not enrolled in electoral rolls, migrant workers do not have a strong political voice.
•Politicians are therefore in a position to ignore their needs and lack the will to improve their conditions.
Corporatization and
Privatization
•This presents a major threat for women informal workers such as the waste pickers.
•The reason for many women waste pickers to join this occupation is the flexibility that it offers and the absence of a
commanding boss. But with privatization, both these factors, i.e. flexibility and the absence of commanding figure are
lost, the work conditions remain the same, and male dominance also increases.
Large number of
Schemes
•Still another issue is the convergence of several similar or related schemes on social protection.
•There is no contesting on the fact that clearly demarcated schemes, which can be clubbed together, are more effective in
benefitting the recipients and also discourages leakages and corruption.
•Yet this is not happening in reality, as the respective stakeholders involved do not want to hurt their interests by discontinuing the
practice of running separate schemes. The challenge here is to demonstrate that the interests of stakeholders will not be
harmed, and that the convergence will further facilitate the implementation of programs.

7. Protecting the Vulnerable: Providing social welfare to informal sector workers
•A high determination and commitment within the political system
is essentialStrong Political Commitment
•Public expenditure on health in India is currently about 1.2 % of
GDP, however more than 2.5% is recommended.
Need for and increased public
health sector expenditure:
•Schemes are required to be made simple and effective making
them easily accessible by the already troubled beneficiariesSimple social protection schemes
•Technology can improve the quality of the schemes,
performance in delivery, bringing transparency and better
monitoring and evaluation of mechanisms
Advanced Technology
•To address the heterogeneity of the informal sector,
Decentralization is required to take advantage of local strengths
and knowledge
Decentralization
Need of the hour

8. Protecting the Vulnerable: Providing social welfare to informal sector workers
•RTI needs to be extended to cover private agencies that are being employed
by the government to provide public servicesTransparency in schemes
•Compulsory provision of support services such as child care centers for children
of working women
•Such initiatives will promote the well-being of the child and reduce child labor
• This would also enable women to take up formal, full time occupations
Recognition of women’s dual
responsibility
•Convergence of related schemes is critical for better delivery of programs and
to decrease the scope of corruption in implementation
• The challenge is to bring the separate stakeholders of various schemes
together against the common agenda
Convergence of related
schemes
•Poor people, who migrate from rural to urban areas have absolutely no rights
when they arrive.
•They remain marginalized and struggle to obtain any proof of their identity
•Hence schemes must provide support to this most vulnerable population
Recognizing migrants
•Besides the general insecurities, the informal sector workers face additional
threats such as, seasonal nature of work and privatization and corporatization
•Skills training programs may be provided to women to enhance their
employment opportunities.
More employment opportunities

9. Protecting the Vulnerable: Providing social welfare to informal sector workers
What we are suggesting here is to implement an alternative application method, that involves
the more available part of the target group
Problems
One of the major
problems associated
with social schemes is
that the target group is
unavailable directly.
And, even if they are
available, they might
not be willing to spend a
day’s wage of work for
standing in queues
Hence, alternative
methods are required to
bring out the larger
numbers
SocialSecurityACT2008
Despite the 2008 Act,
there are no legal
bindings and provisions
of rights to work and
entitlements under it.
Therefore, this law,
which does not deal
with unemployment, its
regulations and wages is
rather incomplete and
dysfunctional
In fact such a
comprehensive act
remains a dream in
India.
TheUrbanPoor
Most of the present
government schemes,
including NREGA, cater
to only registered rural
poor. However, a large
number of urban poor
still remain out of its
shadow.
Additionally, NREGA
doesn’t have a
common wage in
different states and limits
itself to only 100 day’s
work for registered
workers.

10. An alternative approach
Implementation
•Finally, the ID cards can
be issued, or the
individuals can be
called on a predefined
day, to scrutinize or issue
cards.
Application
Process
•Filling up the application
procedure through
those channels, such as
asking students to fill in
details
Documentation
•Surveying and
Documenting
information, through
those children
Identification
•Identifying the target
groups, by alternative
methods such as from
their children studying in
government schools
Protecting the Vulnerable: Providing social welfare to informal sector workers
What can be essentially extracted from the previous slides, is that a simpler implementation
system is required, which should be universal and requires lesser physical involvement of the
target groups.

11. The foremost problem that comes with the informal sector
is the lack of a consistent database
The major problem with existing schemes is the
complexity of the enrollment process
Alternative measures are required to improve the
process, as well the number of physical documents
required for the process
Similar schemes must be converged keeping aside the
political interests
Education, if not directly, but can be provided to the next
generation, so as to improve the level of participation
Protecting the Vulnerable: Providing social welfare to informal sector workers

12. References
1. NSS data from 1999-00, 2004-05 & 2009-10 employment surveys
2. Srivastava, R (2012), “Engendering Social Protection for Informal Economy Workers”
Power Point Presentation at the GEPD forum V. PPT
3. Das, J & Leino, J (2011), “Evaluating the RSBY: Lessons from an Experimental
Information Campaign” in Economic & Political Weekly, August 6, 2011 Vol. XLVI no.
32, pp 85-93
Protecting the Vulnerable: Providing social welfare to informal sector workers