Social Security Schemes – A Boon or a Bane for Socio-Economic Equality: A Study of Workers from Bidi Industry in India

Abstract

India has a large workforce employed in Bidi-making in semi-urban and rural cities in India contributing to unorganized sector of the country. The workforce constitutes women and elderly in a large scale. However, there are several cogent socio-economic issues prevalent in this industry due to lack of awareness about the government initiatives. To address the issues of workers related to working conditions  and promote socioeconomic equality, various labour laws have been enacted over the years. These laws include provisions for compensation, healthcare, retirement benefits, and maternity benefits for workers. However, the effective implementation of these laws requires workers to be aware of their rights and satisfied with the mechanisms in place to protect them. The government has enacted the social security schemes through an umbrella of laws and regulations namely the “Workmen Compensation Act 1923”, the “Employees State Insurance Act 1948 (ESI Act)”, the “Employees Provident Fund (and Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1952”, “Workmen's Compensation Act 1923”, “Payment of Gratuity Act 1972” and “Maternity Benefit Act 1960”. Nevertheless, the beneficiaries of these schemes are a handful. Despite working for years in the bidi manufacturing units these workers are not benefitted because mostly they are either not aware of the schemes available or they are dissatisfied with them. The study explores how the lack of awareness and dissatisfaction with these labour laws contribute to socio-economic inequality among bidi workers in the region. 348 participants from the Uttar Pradesh districts of Prayagraj and Kaushambi provided the data. Measures of central tendency, chi-square test, Kruskal-Wallis test, and ordinal regression analysis were used to examine the data. The detailed study showed that these employees have a low level of awareness regarding the Employee State Insurance Scheme and the Maternity benefits provided by the employers. The study gives recommendations related to upliftment of living conditions of these workers and schemes to create awareness about the social security schemes of the government.