The Union Cabinet’s decision last week to extend health insurance to the country’s 4.75 million domestic workers sounds eminently laudable, but there is some justification for scepticism about its effective implementation. The experience on the ground is quite different about such schemes — designed to placate a population growing restive by the day, but which rarely move beyond pious intentions.
In Maharashtra, one of the country’s leading states and a trendsetter in many ways, there has been a law to protect domestic workers since 2008, but till today it has remained largely on paper. The state government has been unable to constitute a board till now, and Medha Patkar’s NGO — which has been working for the unorganised sector workers — claims the state labour department has said it cannot go ahead with this as the government has no funds. Unless each state sets up a board where such workers can be registered for it, such a health insurance scheme simply cannot be implemented. The Union labour ministry’s proposal under the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY), which secured Cabinet approval on Thursday, provides for insurance cover to the tune of `30,000 for each domestic worker. The Centre will pay 75 per cent of the premium, and the states 25 per cent. But with a state like Maharashtra claiming it has no funds to constitute a board for domestic workers since 2008, how would such a scheme actually benefit the state’s estimated 200,000 domestic workers? It is unlikely that the situation will be very different in other states, possibly with some exceptions. So unless the Centre spells out how it proposes to give effect to its good intentions, and in a time-bound manner, the daily lives of the intended beneficiaries are unlikely to change for the better anytime soon. The RSBY is among the suggestions made by a government-appointed task force, which had also suggested a national pension scheme, health and maternity benefits, old-age assistance and death and disability benefits. All these are urgently required in a country where the majority of people, let alone workers in the unorganised sector, do not enjoy any protection against adversity.
Similarly, the other major proposal cleared by the Cabinet last week — the law ministry’s move to provide quick and speedy justice, clearing the vast backlog in our courts — is likely to go the same way. There have been numerous occasions in the past decades when even the judges of the Supreme Court, besides the law ministry of course, have taken up this issue, but till today we have nearly 30 million cases pending in courts across the country. Justice delayed is justice denied, as the saying goes — so one can only wonder at the extent of injustice that prevails in our democracy. The root causes are much the same: not enough funds, not enough judges, not enough courtrooms. The excuses have been trotted out over decades.
This might all sound very cynical, so where do we go from here? It is undeniable that people in this country — including the deprived and the marginalised, not to mention the aspirational middle class — are getting more and more restless, and increasingly aware of their rights. Governments at the Centre and in the states will not be able to get away with paper schemes much longer. Institutions like the Supreme Court and the Comptroller and Auditor-General and various civil society bodies are turning into watchdogs of people’s rights; and therefore all governments will have to change their approach, and start delivering. Indians are not oblivious of the changes that they see happening elsewhere in the world, and will soon demand greater accountability from their rulers.