2. Bidi (an indigenous smoking product made by rolling a dried, rectangular piece of
tendu leaf with 0.15–0.25 grams of dried, flaked tobacco and secured with a
thread) is the most common smoked tobacco product in India. About 7.7% of
adults in India consume bidi which has a market share of 85% of all smoking
products.
3. Social security and labor welfare programmed are necessary for the development
and sustenance of efficient work force. The term ‘labor welfare’ is very
comprehensive and includes multiplicity of activities, viz., wages, medical,
education, sanitation and drinking water, family planning, credit facilities, and
old age security, etc. The effective application of these measures will have direct
bearing on the productive efficiency of laborer's.
The unorganized workers suffer from cycles of excessive seasonality of
employment, no formal employer-employee relationship and lack of social security
protection. Several legislations like the Minimum Wages Act, 1948; the Workmen’s
Compensation Act, 1923 and the Maternity Benefit Act, 1961; the Employees’
Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952 are directly or indirectly
applicable to the workers in the unorganized sector also. The Government has
constituted some welfare funds also to provide social security to workers in
occupations like beedi rolling, etc., (Standing Committee on Labor 2004-2005).
4. Although the government has established facilities for free health services for the
rural poor, these are not effectively utilized for a variety of reasons. The major
deterrents are the location of the health centres, their timings (a long waiting
period), poor quality of care, non-availability of drugs and other essential supplies,
bribes demanded by rude and indifferent staff. Consequently, the people have had
to go in for expensive medical treatment which is often beyond their means and
have had to borrow money at high rate of interest or had to mortgage their
sources of livelihood. There are also specific Acts, such as the Beedi and Cigar
Workers (Conditions of Employment) Act, 1966, and Beedi Workers Welfare Fund
Act, 1976, that provide schemes for workers. The provisions include health
insurance, maternity benefits, and scholarships for children, provident fund and
housing assistance.
5. The Act also provides for wages for overtime work (S.18), hours of work to correspond
under notice (S.23), annual leave with wages (S.26) and wages during leave period
(S.27). In addition to that, the Payment of Wages Act, 1936 is made applicable to
industrial premises as per S.28, which opens a lot of doors. Similarly, the Industrial
Disputes Act, 1947 is also made applicable to the Beedi industry as per S.39 of the Act.
The Government have formulated various schemes for the welfare of beedi workers
under the existing Labour Welfare Fund Acts viz the Beedi and Cigar Workers
(Conditions of Employment) Act, 1966, prescribes measures to promote healthy
working conditions of beedi and cigar workers at workplaces in terms of cleanliness,
ventilation, first aid, canteen facilities, working hours, time off, etc. However, two
other Acts, such as the Beedi Workers Welfare Fund Act, 1976, and the Beedi Workers
Welfare Cess Act, 1976 cover other types of welfare facilities such as medical,
educational, recreational, etc Under the former Act, funds have been created for the
beedi workers by levy of cess on the production of beedis (Government of India, 1995).
The objective of the Welfare Fund Act is to promote financial assistance to the persons
engaged in this profession, and the Welfare Cess Act aims to collect taxes by way of
Cess or by imposing excise duty on manufactured beedis.
6. Emerging from a recommendation of the Second National Commission on Labor
(2002), the Social Security Code is an attempt to simplify labor laws connected with
social security. It is an amalgamation of nine existing laws pertaining to various
aspects of social security such as Employees’ State Insurance Act (1948), the Maternity
Benefit Act (1961) and the Payment of Gratuity Act (1972), the Building and Other
Construction Workers Cess Act (1996) and the Unorganized Workers’ Social Security
Act (2008).
In an attempt to streamline this economy, the Code on Social Security, for the first
time, attempts to define who can be called a gig, platform or unorganized worker. A gig
worker, it states, is someone “outside the traditional employer-employee relationship”,
while a platform worker is someone who provides services through an online platform.
An unorganized worker is someone who works in the unorganized sector, and is not
already covered by the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, or other provisions like
provident fund and gratuity. This includes home-based and self-employed workers.
The Code does not include agricultural wage workers, domestic workers, street
7. The Code provides thresholds on the size of establishments (such as minimum 10 or 20
employees) that will be eligible for social security coverage. Moreover, only employees earning
above a certain amount [to be notified by the government] in these establishments can avail of
benefits. So, workers in many companies with less than 10 employees will not be included. But
from a strategy point of view, it might make sense for the government to start with larger
organizations and then go down to smaller numbers so that implementing the process would be
easier.
The approach taken to draft the Code is pro-industry instead of pro-worker. The dilution can be
seen in instances like no stringent penalty for non-contribution of provident fund dues by the
employer and in case of gratuity, the principal employer is not liable if the contractor through
which these workers are hired does not pay them.
Home-based workers from a significant section of India’s unorganised sector, which is
approximately 93 percent as per government estimates. Often, social security for these workers
is treated as an extra expense that is non-conducive to business or as a philanthropic obligation.
This approach completely undermines the status of workers and reduces them to beneficiaries of
charity programmes instead of workers with entitlements. Social security is a key indicator of
decent work as stated by the International Labour Organisation and the right of all workers.
8. Article 23 of the Indian Constitution gives all citizens a right to work without
exploitation i.e., protection from forced or trafficked labour. Social security
considerably reduces the vulnerability to exploitative work practices. From a
purely ‘business perspective’, access to social security fosters a more productive,
healthier and committed workforce. Workers with access to social security are also
more secure in times of crises, such as a pandemic, requiring lesser stop-gap
expenditure from the government.
However, the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020 has
a dedicated chapter for the Beedi and Cigar workers (Part V, Sections 74 to 77),
dealing with the licenses and safety of the premises.
9. A vast majority of the workforce in India is engaged in informal employment.
Informal employment comprises not only workers in the unorganized sector but
also informal workers in the organized sector (ILO 2016). The bidi industry rests
on informal employment operating mainly in the interface between the
unorganized and organized sector.
Further, definitions should be consolidated keeping in mind the shifting nature of
home-based work, so that no worker loses out on social security. Unemployment
benefit should be included in the set of proposed benefits and access to social
security benefits should be made mandatory for all categories of unorganized
workers, unlike the current status where some workers win and some lose.
