The Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) ahead of the upcoming Union Budget has demanded an extension of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) for 200 days for each family.
The trade union at the same time has also batted for an extension of the much-debated scheme in agriculture and other related activities, informed the union body in an official statement issued on June 24.
The demands were raised during an interaction of trade union leaders with the Union Finance Minister (FM), Nirmala Seetharaman during pre-budget consultation held at the Ministry of Finance on Monday.
Representing the BMS, its All India Organising Secretary, B Surenderan also reiterated the trade union’s long-held demands pertaining to enhancement of honorarium of scheme workers, especially for Asha, Aanganwadi, Midday Meal and National Health Mission (NHM).
He further emphasised that the Union Budget of 2024-25 must focus on Rural development, Manufacturing, Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), Export and Infrastructure development.
The BMS Organising Secretary, further while highlighting the issue linked to minimum assured pension has demanded that a 50 per cent assured pension of the last salary drown should be ensured along with Dearness Allowance (DA) under all the schemes. He also suggested the FM to restore the Old Pension Scheme (OPS).
The trade union secretary further requested the FM for introducing provisions of adequate funding for welfare boards of unorganized sector such as Beedi Workers along with providing a minimum monthly pension of INR 5000, Variable Dearness Allowance (VDA), benefits of Ayushman Bharat scheme to all Employee Pension Scheme (EPS) 95 pensioner.
The union has also requested that the union government must act quickly to fill all the vacancies (around 20 lakhs) under the central government citing that employment generation is necessary to benefit from the demographic dividend.
Continuous demand of social security for ‘Scheme Workers’
It is worth mentioning here that the BMS has been persistently raising their demands for social securities for millions of scheme workers across the country. Earlier thousands of functionaries of the trade union had also gathered in support of the scheme workers such as Aanganbadi, Asha, Mid-Day meal and NHM workers, at Jantar-Mantar of New Delhi in December last year.
In the protest rally held, the union leaders, along with thousands of scheme workers voiced for increased basic pay structure and facilities provided under social security for all the scheme workers associated with long operational schemes such as Aanganbadi, Asha, Mid-day Meal, and the NHM.
The protest organised by the BMS concluded with the resolve that the government should immediately implement a fair promotion policy along with providing other facilities to the scheme workers as provided to other government staff, such as leaves, retirement benefits, accident cover, and other allowances.
Affiliated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), BMS is one of the largest trade union body of the Bharat, working towards safeguarding the rights of organised and unorganised workers across the states over six decades.
