The Long Road to Social Security

Description

      The Indian economy is characterized by a vast informal sector dominated by self-employed as well as hired labour without any employment and-or social security. This book is about social security, or the lack of it, for the labouring poor in this country. It is a critical study of the workings of two flagship national social security schemes initiated by the Government of India—the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme and the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (the national health insurance scheme).   Fresh contributions made by senior scholars and researchers in the field, the essays provide rich data and analysis on social security schemes at work in five Indian states—Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Kerala, Odisha, and Punjab. They are the outcome of local level studies capturing the conditions and responses of the labouring poor in these states. Some essays also assess the implementation of pension schemes for the aged, and cash benefits for single women and the handicapped introduced by the Central and state governments. The volume reveals the limitations of these schemes, both in terms of design and implementation in the current neoliberal setup in India. The studies combine macro- and micro-level as well as qualitative and quantitative data, which lend them a multidisciplinary quality.