Kerala 2005 - of Planning Commission

CHAPTER 3
ASSESSING DEVELOPMENT: THE INCOME DIMENSION
55
The coverage of workers across the welfare funds varies.
Total workers enrolled in the 22 (for which data are
available) welfare fund boards by 2003-04 constitute
73 per cent of the estimated workers, numbering
68.48 lakh. Female workers outnumber males in
cashew, tailoring, coir and beedi industry. In the
Cashew Workers’ Welfare Board, 96 per cent of the
enrolled workers, and in Coir Workers’ Welfare Board,
81.6 per cent of the enrolled workers are female. In
Boards like the Toddy Workers’, Head Load Workers’
and Abkari Workers’, above 90 per cent of the workers
are male (Government of Kerala 2005: 337). It can be
seen that in nine out of 22 welfare boards, there is
complete coverage.
The benefits vary across funds. However, they seem to cover
a number of aspects. Some of the major benefits provided
are: Provident fund, gratuity, monthly pension (old age),
disability and accident cover, health cover, unemployment
relief, educational allowance, housing assistance, marriage
assistance and funeral expense.
It is indisputable that the social security cover needs to
be extended to workers in the unorganised sector, who
do not have a specific employer-employee relation in an
organisation. This need has now been recognised at the
national level also. Kerala has, in fact, taken pioneering
initiatives in this regard much ahead of many other States.
But there is need for streamlining the welfare fund approach
to social security, as the administrative costs far exceed the
welfare expenditure in the case of a number of boards. It is
a situation in which running the welfare boards has become
an end in itself rather than being the means to the end of
achieving social security for the target population. Serious
thought has to be given to reforming the administration of
the welfare boards and injecting a measure of professional
management and service delivery.
These schemes are important both from the promotional
and protective social security aspects.
4.7 Special Poverty Alleviation Schemes
It was the phenomenal success of the community development
schemes in Alappuzha and Malappuram districts 18 that
prompted the Kerala Government to launch the State-wide
poverty eradication programme known as Kudumbashree
Box 3.1: Ashraya
This scheme, which is a special programme for the destitute, was
initiated in 101 village panchayats and subsequently extended
to 46 more. The neighbourhood group of the Kudumbashree
identified destitute families and trained volunteers to interact
with the families to prepare family-based micro plans. Destitute
families are the ones which fulfil seven of the following nine
criteria: (i) Kuchcha houses, (ii) No access to safe drinking
water, (iii) No access to sanitary latrine, (iv) Illiterate adult in
the family, (v) Having not more than one earning member,
(vi) Getting barely two meals a day, (vii) presence of children
below 5 years, (viii) Alcoholic or drug addict in the family, and
(ix) Scheduled caste or Scheduled tribe family. The scheme
proposes a continuous hand-holding of the family till it comes
out of destitution and monitors its progress.
Source: Economic Review (2003: 304).
(Family Prosperity), based on neighbourhood groups at the
grassroots level in 1998. It is a multifaceted, women-based
participatory poverty eradication programme with assistance
from the Central Government and NABARD. Currently,
Kudumbashree is the most important State Government
poverty alleviation programme; it also attempts to empower
women through its activities. From the NHGs, women form
smaller ‘self-help’ groups for undertaking some economic
activity. Efforts have been made by the Kudumbashree
functionaries to diversify into innovative activities that
educated young women (and men) can undertake. This
programme, which has grown extensively in terms of
number of NHGs and SHGs as also savings mobilised in a
short period of time is discussed further in Chapter 9, since
it is closely linked to local-level developmental activities.
A sub-component of this programme is Ashraya, meant for
the very poor and the destitute (Box 3.1).
4.8 Fiscal Costs of Social Security
Pension Schemes
The various social security schemes have a direct and
explicit bearing on the State budget. The expenditure
on pension alone works out to 0.24 per cent and
2.17 per cent of the State Domestic Product and revenue
receipts in 2002-03, respectively. These are by any
standards very low proportions and it is difficult to argue
that the expenditure incurred on pension schemes for
various sections of the unorganised sector are causing
excessive financial burden.
18 This was a participatory poverty reduction approach adopted in seven wards in Alappuzha municipality during 1992 and
scaled up to the entire municipal area and tried out in the rural area of Malappuram district developed and supported by the
Local Administration Department, Government of Kerala and UNICEF.