75% of Indians deprived of social security

New Delhi: The protection of the concerned person and family becomes essential in situations such as illness, disability, old age, unemployment and death. To reduce poverty and vulnerability of the people, various policies and programs are implemented to protect them from economic and social risks.

But according to a recent International Labor Organization (ILO) report, this facility is not available to a huge share of the total population in India. Only 24.4% of Indians have any form of social protection, which is even less than neighboring Bangladesh (28.4%). That means more than 75% of Indians do not have social security. According to the World Social Protection Report 2020-22 released by the ILO on Friday, in the Asia Pacific region, Mongolia, New Zealand, Singapore and Australia have social security coverage close to 100 percent, while in Myanmar and Cambodia, this number is only 10 percent.

Under-investment in social security, spending under non-contributory schemes is not enough to provide people with this security. Only those working in the organized sector are coming under the contributory scheme while the poor are being accommodated in the non-contributory scheme. India’s social security benefits are less than 5% of per capita gross domestic product (GDP). However, the report lauded the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Guaranteed Employment Scheme (MGNREGA) for providing up to 100 days of work to unorganized sector workers. In the Asia Pacific region, 3 out of 4 people do not receive social security if they are sick or injured at work, it said. In countries with low per capita income, such as India, Pakistan, Nepal, Afghanistan, etc., less than 5% of workers have access to social security in case of traumatic health problems, according to the ILO report.

It is further stated that by 2020, only 46.9% of the world’s total population was covered by social security. The remaining 53.1%, or about 4.1 billion people, were deprived of social protection. In terms of gender, the number of women receiving social security is about 8% less than that of men. According to the report, 69.4% of the world’s working-age population, or 4 billion people, are partially protected or have no social protection at all.