Demand from Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh to Finance Minister, MNREGA scheme for laborers in urban areas
A phase of preparations for the general budget has started. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has also started a round of meetings regarding Budget 2021. He has also sought suggestions from economists, top industrialists and farmers and labor and trade organizations regarding the budget. In the same sequence, the National Self-Service Union Support Organization (Mazdoor Unit) Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) has suggested to the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to introduce schemes like MNREGA for workers in urban areas in the budget.
Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh General Secretary B Surendran has written a letter to Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman giving his suggestions on Budget 2021 and said that MNREGA scheme is most needed in rural area during Corona period. It should be done two hundred days per family to prevent poverty. Workers from villages and remote areas are coming towards the city. Therefore, laborers should get work on the lines of MNREGA-like schemes in urban areas.
The trade union has further demanded that under the EPS there is currently a caste pension of one thousand. Which is very less. It should be five thousand rupees. There should also be an increase of five percent every year. The scope of the ESI facility should be expanded, so that the Mazdoor class can also get its benefits. Today, in many sectors like automobiles, transport, sports, handlooms and tourism are not working as before. Our demand is that the government should provide unemployment allowance or special facilities to the laborers working in these areas. So that the economic condition of the people working in these sectors can improve.
The trade union suggested to the Union Finance Minister that indigenous policies should be adopted in the construction and industrial sectors so that the standard of living of the people working in them can be improved. In today’s time, most jobs are temporary. We demand that the limit of gratuity be reduced from five years to one year. Legislation should be made for social welfare schemes like Ayushyam Bharat Scheme, Shram Yogi Maandhan Yojana so that their benefit can be given to all classes of people permanently. Many state governments are investing in construction labor welfare funds in other activities. Advisory should be issued immediately to stop it as directed by the Supreme Court.
We thank the government for increasing the monthly grant of Anganwadi Asha workers. But some states have not implemented this increase. The central government should direct the states to implement it immediately. The monthly grant of laborers working in the same mid-day meal should be increased from 12 hundred to six thousand.
BMS demanded that the beedi industry be separated from the tobacco industry. Tax rates should also be reduced on this. 15 hundred contract workers working in Air India for more than 20 years should be regularized. Training of skill development of employees working in the same institution for more than five years should be given.
The Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh demanded that the central government take a decision after consulting the Central Trade Union on FDI and privatization of railways, among other matters. The Indian labor unions do not agree on the methods of privatization of government PSUs. The Sangh demands that it be reconsidered. A new service should be formed to manage PSUs so that it can function properly. The old pension scheme should be replaced with the old pension. At the same time, the exemption limit for income tax should be increased to Rs 10 lakh. Also, the Central Trade Union should be exempted from income tax.
