IN a letter written to the union finance minister Yashwant Sinha on July 5, the All India Agricultural Workers Union (AIAWU) has questioned the authenticity of his recent statement about a new insurance scheme for agricultural workers.

According to a press note released by the ministry of labour, the pilot scheme called Shramik Samajik Suraksha Yojana, to be run by the said ministry and Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), is the same comprehensive social security scheme that the finance minister announced would start from July 1, 2001.

But, according to the letter written by AIAWU general secretary A Vijayaraghavan, far from being a comprehensive scheme as was promised, it is limited to a miserable 50 blocks in 50 districts spread all over the country, and that too "in a phased manner." Going by this pace, it would take a hundred years to implement the plan in the whole country.

The AIAWU leader’s letter raises some other issues as well. For example, we know that, on an average, agricultural workers get work only for 32 to 78 days a year, depending on the area. Also, taking the country as a whole, their average daily wage is no more than Rs 30 per day, which works out to be Rs 2440 per year at the most. With this earning of about Rs 200 per month, a contribution of Rs 365 per year as premium is not at all feasible.

Moreover, the latest scheme has been lumped together with the already existing pension schemes, according to which agricultural labourers need not contribute anything. It has also been lumped with the already existing LIC scheme for payment in case of death, which requires no premium to be paid. This gives one the impression that not only is a hoax being played on agricultural workers, a cut-back is also being imposed on what they are already entitled to.

The scheme is perfectly in line with the policy of abandoning the government’s responsibility towards the basic right of 120 million Indian citizens to live, as the fate of the poorest and most oppressed people is being handed over to all sorts of agencies without any constitutional standing. The latest scheme is likely to become another way for the privileged to loot the funds of the poor.

The AUAWU leader’s letter regretfully reminds the finance minister that nothing less than a comprehensive central legislation for agricultural workers on the 1974 Kerala pattern will do. The NDA government is, on record, unwilling to implement such a law. Of course the hoax of a new scheme may work for a while, but the letter says the life of hoaxes too is nowadays too short to make them worth the effort. Hence the AIAWU has urged the finance minister to abandon experiments that are likely to upset those who can ill afford such jokes. It must, instead, come forward with a comprehensive scheme that has been at the draft legislation stage for the last 21 years.