Govt has good news for 37 cr workers

Sources said that the issue came up for discussion at the Cabinet meeting but with elections round the corner, no decision was taken. If the Cabinet were to go by the GoM approval, consumer price of natural gas used for cooking and for transport in some states would have gone up.

It would have impacted the price of power and fertiliser since natural gas is used by power and fertiliser plants as fuel or feedstock. In October, the Government forced the Petroleum Ministry to withdraw the same proposal from the Cabinet in view of the Assembly elections in five states, including Delhi.

Incidentally, even though the proposal before the Cabinet was for a legislation on social security scheme, it was decided to implement it straight away on a pilot basis.

The reason for the shift was explained by Labour Minister Sahib Singh Verma who said that a legislation would have been time consuming what with reference to the Standing Committee.

Verma said the pilot project could be launched before Republic Day, most probably on January 23, the birthday of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.

Earlier, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj denied that early polls was the reason for not opting for a legislation. Her explanation was that the Cabinet felt such a large scheme should be made sound enough to ensure its success before giving it a statutory backing.

The safety net provides a flat pension of Rs 500 per month on retirement or disability to workers who opt to join the scheme and have an identifiable employer. Both employees, in the age group of 36-50 year, and the employer will have to contribute Rs 200 per month.

The Centre also climbed down from its previous approval of allowing wage revisions in central PSUs every 10 years.

Earlier, wages were revised through negotiation Govt has good news for 37 cr workers
between managment and the unions every five years. But on June 25, 1999, the Government raised the periodicity to 10 years and held on to it despite strong protests from the unions.

Swaraj said that the guidelines for wage revision will allow the management and the union to start negotiating for wage settlements effective for five years from January 2002.

But this would not be availbale for PSUs which are sick or do not generate profits since there would be no budgetary support for the wage increase from the Government.

Moreover, PSUs operating under an administered price mechanism would have to ensure that the wage increase does not result in a rise in the administered prices of their goods and services, she added.