NCEUS proposes formation of National Fund for unorganised sector

05 Apr '07

3 min read

The National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganized Sector (NCEUS), set up by the Government of India as an advisory body and a watchdog for the informal sector, under the Ministry of Small Scale Industries and Agro and Rural Industries, has proposed to recommend the formation of a National Fund designed to meet the multi purpose needs of both enterprises and workers in the unorganized sector.

Addressing a Press Conference here the Chairman of the Commission, Dr. Arjun Sengupta said that the tasks proposed to be handled by the Fund were extensive as the sector needed a holistic approach for its development taking into account all essential needs covering finance, technology, raw material, marketing, infrastructure, skill and entrepreneurship and would cover both farm and non-farm sectors and also rural and urban areas.

The Commission's findings show that forty per cent of the workers in the unorganised agricultural and non-agricultural sector are wage workers and sixty per cent are self-employed. Among the self-employed, the overwhelming majority are own account or assisting family workers and only 1.15 % (among non-agricultural workers) are employers.

Dr. Sengupta said that the vast majority of the self-employed in the unorganised sector themselves worked under poor conditions and the productivity of their enterprises was low. Measures to protect the livelihood of the self-employed workers and to promote the productivity of the unorganisedenterprises, will not only have an impact on the condition of the self-employed, but also on the condition of the unorganised wage workers who work in the unorganised enterprises.

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