Around 53% of all of the salaried workforce does not have any social security benefits in India, according to the Periodic Labour Force Survey Annual Report 2021-22, and which has been cited in the media. In effect, this means that such employees have no access to a provident fund, pension, and health care and disability insurance. Another conclusion is that just 1.9% of the poorest 20% quintile of India’s workforce has access to any benefits. Meanwhile, gig workers, or approximately 1.3% of India’s active labour force, rarely have access to any social security benefit. India’s social security system is also ranked poorly; Mercer CFS ranked it at 40 out of 43 countries in 2021.
India’s policymakers have largely ignored social security. While policies are often announced, budgetary allocation has always been limited and utilisation even less so. In FY11, the National Social Security Fund was set up for unorganised sector workers, with an initial allocation of just ₹1,000 crore to support schemes for weavers, rickshaw pullers and bidi workers to name a few. The amount was a pittance when compared to a requirement of over ₹22,841 crore — as estimated by the Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability.
A Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) audit on the scheme in FY17 identified ₹1,927 crore (the entire amount accumulated since inception) had just not been utilised. Consequently, select social security schemes have been left moribund. Take the National Social Assistance Programme that was set up in the 1990s, with a focus on old-age poor individuals with no able-bodied earners in their household, who were eligible to earn a monthly pension of ₹75. Contribution by the Centre to old-age pension schemes has stagnated at ₹200 a month since 2006, i.e., below the minimum wage per day. Similarly, in July 2022, the CAG identified that the cess collected for the provision of social security to construction workers in Delhi was poorly utilised — approximately 94% of the money was not utilised. In Haryana, the CAG noted that the direct benefit scheme of the State’s Social Justice and Empowerment Department had seen the transfer of ₹ 98.96 crore to the accounts of deceased beneficiaries. Meanwhile, budgetary cuts to the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act continue.
