Introduction:

Scheme workers providing basic services through various government programmes form the backbone of the country’s social welfare system. The various Scheme workers ensure health, nutrition, well-being, education and all round development of every child and her parent to ensure better human development.

There is not enough attention paid to the conditions under which they work or the value that is attributed to their work.

Body:

The scheme workers are the true implementers of the various welfare schemes and public service delivery. They work at the grass-roots level, thus aware of needs of the citizens’ better, thereby acting as a primary feed-back collector.               

There are around 27 lakh anganwadi workers and helpers, predominantly women, under the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), a similar number under the MDMS, around 10 lakh accredited social health activists (ASHAs) and urban social health activists (USHAs), and around three lakh auxiliary nurse midwives (ANMs), all under the National Health Mission. There are many more lakhs under the National Child Labour Project, Small Savings Schemes, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, and National Rural Livelihoods Mission, among others.

Considering their job descriptions and scope, it is obvious that this female-dominated workforce performs a crucial role involving the welfare of marginalised sections. They are the “face” and “hands” of social welfare schemes that cover pregnant women, children, the ill, and the malnourished.

The issues faced by such workers are:

• Low salary:
  • Anganwadi workers provide a long list of services, ranging from teaching pre-schoolers to visiting homes of young children for nutrition and health counselling. Despite that, these workers get about Rs 5,000 a month, which is less than the minimum wages.
  • Despite the importance of the work, their positions are considered “honorary” and their emoluments kept out of all norms of minimum wages and pay grades.
• Delay in funds allocation:
  • Salaries delayed: A study of six states by the Centre for Equity Studies in 2016 revealed that 35 per cent of the workers had not received their previous month’s salary.
  • Inadequate funds to run the program at ground-level: 50 per cent of the workers felt that the funds they received for running the day-to-day activities of the centre were inadequate.
  • Spending at Own Cost: 40 per cent reported spending their own money to keep the centre’s activities going.
• Overburdened:
  • Low financial allocations to the education sector (about 3% of GDP) have meant that state governments cannot afford to hire teachers at the Pay Commission scales.
  • Over the years, they have hired fewer teachers, leading to huge vacancies and overburdening the hired teachers.
  • There are no fixed timings of work and this upsets their work-life balance.
  • The anganwadi, school teachers are saddled with a host of administrative work like election duties, census work etc.
• Poor Infrastructure:
  • Infrastructure is a major concern. The lack of buildings or dilapidated buildings poses grave threats to workers as well as the children patients etc.
  • To add to this, basic facilities like electricity, drinking water, sanitation, internet connectivity is mostly absent.
  • Lack of adequate training facilities lead to poor-quality work, increased risk to the service- receivers.
• Job Insecurity:
  • Most of them are hired as contractual employees or volunteers.
  • The RTE banned contract teachers; non-regular teachers were no longer referred to as contract or para teachers, but in fact continue to function as such.
  • Their contracts are “permanent”, but their terms are not that of a regular government employee.
  • The lack of safe work environment makes them vulnerable to sexual harassments.
  • The attempts to privatise and cut budgetary allocations to these schemes are also part of the state’s larger move to divest itself of its core responsibilities.

Impacts of such issues faced by the scheme workers result in

• Rampant absenteeism.
• Poor attention to core responsibilities.
• Lack of commitment to work.
• Corruption and bribery to satiate their needs.
• Strikes, protest and unrest.
• Poor Human Development Indicators like high IMR, MMR, wasting, stunting and underweight.
• High levels of preventable diseases incidences like polio, TB etc.
• Poor quality of education outcome as shown in ASER survey.

Way Forward:

• Government spending on education and health must be increased to 6% and 4% respectively as recommended by many expert committees.
• Timely allocation of funds must be done to reduce spending from frontline worker’ pockets.
• Salaries must be uniform and fixed across the country based on pay commission recommendations. The salaries must be disbursed on fixed date of month.
• Use of NSQF for Trainings and certifications must be mandated as per existing laws. Intermittent trainings must be provided for the frontline workers to keep themselves updated with new trends.
• Measures like RTI, Social Audit, Citizens Charters can help keep a check on such delays as accountability of government increases.
• Increase digital penetration to reduce administrative overhead and planning of activities to coincide with cultural calendar of the region.
• Infrastructure can improved by collaborating with the NGO’s , using CSR funds of companies and philanthropists.
• Grievance Redressal Mechanism to address the woes of the frontline workers.

Conclusion:

India’s ability to achieve its SDGs or to have a healthy skilled workforce that contributes towards economic progress or social and human development depends to a large extent on the performance of scheme workers. Thus, a closer look at their governance architectures is necessary.