Eighty-six per cent of working Indians earn less than Rs 20 or half a dollar a day, untouched by the country's blistering economic growth, a government-backed study said on Friday.
Out of 457 million workers, 395 million are employed in the so-called unorganised sector -- in areas such as agriculture, construction, weaving and fishing -- the study found.
"Only 0.4 per cent of the 395 million unorganised sector workers have access to any form of social security," added the report from the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector.
"... 79 per cent of unorganised workers ... earn less than Rs 20 (49 cents) a day," it said describing their living conditions as "sordid," and "utterly deplorable."
"No social security, pitiable working conditions, extreme poverty, no education, acute gender discrimination, and absent or poorly implemented laws - this is what India's workers live by," said author of the report and senior government official Arjun Sengupta.
It was sent earlier this week to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who was elected three years ago on a pro-poor ticket and continually warns that the dividends of India's economic boom must trickle down.
At the same time, the number of Indians with a net asset of at least a million dollars reportedly crossed the 100,000 mark last year.
Singh launched India on the path of economic reforms in 1991 when he was finance minister, but conscious of the growing disparity in wealth, he has called on industry to shoulder social responsibility and give jobs to the socially and educationally underprivileged.
A draft bill to provide healthcare and pension benefits to some 370 million workers currently outside the existing welfare safety net, is set to go before parliament in the coming weeks.
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Saturday, August 11, 2007
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