GS 2: Social Justice -Vulnerable Sections
Why in News?
The Labour and Employment Ministry on Monday launched the fieldwork for the All India Survey on Domestic Workers, covering 742 districts in 37 states and Union Territories.
What does the Survey contain?
The survey is aimed at estimating
- the number and proportion of DWs at the national and state level
- percentage distribution of domestic workers for live-in/live-out, formal/informal employment, migrant/non-migrant
- their wages and other socio-economic characteristics.
This survey will cover all types of domestic services like cook, driver, housekeeping, tutor (for children), watchman, etc.
Need for the Survey?
The Migrant Labour crisis that played out during the Covid-induced national lockdown last year exposed the gaping holes in the social security architecture in India. The absence of credible data on the migrant workforce, the inability to identify them quickly enough, meant that little policy support could be extended to this section during a period of acute economic distress.
This absence of comprehensive, granular data extends well beyond the migrant workers, and encompasses the entire unorganised labour, which accounts for roughly 90 per cent of the entire labour force in the country.
As per latest data on the e-Shram portal, around 8.8 per cent of registered 8.56 crore informal sector workers fall in the DW category. DWs (8.71 per cent) are the third largest category of workers after agriculture (53.6 per cent), and construction (12.2 per cent).
Rapid urbanisation due to expansion would lead to migration of workers and a rise in the number of domestic workers.
Benefits of the Survey:
- This All India Surveys alongwith the recently launched e-Shram portal, will be game changer and will set new standards in data driven policy making.
- This evidence-based study will help the government in policymaking for this segment of workers.
- The survey will help the government understand significant issues on certain special and vulnerable segments of labour and will guide effective policymaking,
- Governments could tailor specific schemes to help those sections of the unorganised labour force who have faced the brunt of the economic dislocation.
Other Steps Taken:
- AQEES : Earlier in September government launched All-India Quarterly Establishment-based Employment Survey (AQEES) to gauge organised sector employment.
- e-Shram portal :The government has also launched the e-Shram portal - a database of unorganised workers, through which the government hopes to register 38 crore unorganised workers.
- Unnati :The database under e-Shram portal will also be linked to Unnati — the proposed labour matching platform.
The identification and registration of these workers marks the first stage in a long journey towards creating a social security structure for this part of the labour force.
Sources :
