'No mechanism to monitor social security schemes in India'

India does not have any mechanism to monitor its expenditure in social security schemes leading to duplications, a senior official of the Union Ministry of Labour and Employment said today.
"Today we do not have any mechanism to find out how much the state government or the Central government is spending on social security schemes," Additional Central Provident Fund Commissioner V Vijayakumar said at a programme organised by the Indian Chamber of Commerce here.
"It's my personal feeling that we must have an umbrella scheme covering all schemes so that we know whether there is any duplication of benefits or not," he said, citing examples of cashew workers in Kerala managing three or four pensions both from the state and the Centre.

"Whereas there are lakhs of people who do not get any social security in the country even today. But at the same time we are giving duplicate benefits or giving different benefits to one single person. I believe we must maintain a proper database and go for a proper investment of the money that we are pulling into the social security system," he said.
According to the official, India has to face queries on its social security schemes during negotiations with other countries who have an umbrella for the benefits of its employees.
"Whenever we go to negotiate with other countries, for example with the US, the first question we face is over the universal social security," he said.

"It's not that the govt is not spending money. Both state governments and Centre government are spending a lot of money on social security," Vijayakumar said.
Now the present government was trying to focus more and more on the unorganised sector, he said.
"It's the top on the agenda of the Centre and sources of funds have already been identified to roll out such schemes," the Labour Ministry official added.