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Govt mulls welfare fund for Indian workers overseas

The Labour Ministry has proposed to constitute a welfare fund for the Indian overseas workers.

It will be utilised for repatriating the workers stranded in foreign countries providing financial assistance to the kin of workers who die during foreign employment, for transportation of the bodies of dead workers and for lump-sum assistance to workers permanently disabled while in foreign employment.

The money for the fund will be raised by collecting a fee from each worker leaving the country for overseas employment. This was disclosed at the meeting of the Parliamentary Consutlative Committee attached to the Labour Ministry.

The meeting was told that there are 6.6 million people with Indian passports working outside India.

Labour Minister Satya Narayan Jatiya said several steps are being taken to prevent exploitation of emigrant workers both at home and abroad. He said that the chief secretaries of all the states have been requested to ensure police surveillance on the activities of unauthorised agents and register cases against them.

Jatiya said that seven firms engaged in emigration of workers were de-registered last year. He said that emigration of housemaids to Kuwait had been halted following receipt of several complaints about ill-treatment by employers.

Labour Secretary L Mishra said government has taken serious note of allegations that some agents were charging more than the prescribed fee from workers going abroad. Apprising the members of the employment scenario in the country, Mishra said that the rate of unemployment in India is 2.6 per cent that is one of the lowest compared to many other countries.

The labour secretary said 322 million people are employed in India. However, 20 million of them are under-employed. He said that 7.5 million people are unemployed.

Informing the members about the action taken on various issues raised during the last consultative committee meeting, the labour secretary said the state governments have been asked to constitute welfare boards and welfare boards and welfare fund for the building and other construction workers.

He said that only Kerala and Tamil Nadu have formed the welfare fund with a corpus of Rs 25o million. He said that there are 85 million workers engaged in building and other construction activity. Regarding amendments to the Contract Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, Mishra said that the group of minister will be having its second meeting on May 12 and expressed hope that the amendments would be finalised soon.

The members of the consultative committee called for stringent action against illegal agents. They suggested constitution of a mechanism to monitor the condition of emigrant workers. One of the members suggested the members of the consultative committee should be allowed to visit countries having high concentration of Indian workers.

He said this will have a positive impact on the working condition of labourers. Another member suggested that the consultative committee meeting should be held in an area from where maximum number of people have gone abroad to know the real problems regarding emigration and exploitation.

The meeting was attended by the Minister of State for Labour Muni Lall, members of parliament Ashok Pradhan, Brij Lal Khabri, Ramchandra Khuntia, Santosh Chowdhary, P Rajendran and Sushila Saroj.

UNI

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