Monday, July 25, 2011

Government to provide health Insurance to migrant laborers

The Government is planning on providing health insurance to rag pickers, rickshaw pullers, taxi and auto rickshaw drivers, miners, sanitation workers and toddy workers. Insurance will be provided under the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana.

The ultimate goal of this Yojana is to cover all individuals in the un-organized sector. The scheme started with cover being provided to BPL families followed by MGNREGA workers. The proposal to identify domestic workers, beedi workers and street vendors was recently passed as well.

Some trade union leaders have argued that the Insurance should be provided to everyone regardless of which sector they work in. Considering the population of the country, that option does not seem feasible to the Government.

India has 360 million workers. And with the financial resources that covering all these individuals requires, the Government really needs to get its act together. Also further nationwide projects become easier to implement with these steps. UID schemes will become easier to implement among other mass schemes.

Further proposals and legislations are expected to follow.

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