20May17

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Our journey continues to be challenging but rewarding. We are finally making inroads in the right direction and now need to accelerate our impact and build on this foundation. 

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16 May 2017

In the first phase, small factories employing up to 10 workers may be exempt

The Labour Ministry may implement its proposed social security law in a phased manner exempting small factories, employing up to 10 workers, from its ambit initially.

“We are contemplating implementing the proposed law on social security in a phased manner,” said a senior Labour Ministry official, on the condition of anonymity.

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“The small factories could be covered in the second phase. Factories employing more than 10 workers and informal sector workers can be covered in the first phase.”

“After two years, factories employing less than 10 workers can also be brought under the framework of the proposed social security law,” the official added.

The Labour Ministry had in March proposed a labour code on social security which will provide social security cover to the entire workforce in the country, including self-employed and agricultural workers. Factories with even a single worker will have to contribute towards social security benefits, as per the proposed law.

Key demand

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This is for the first time that the Central government had proposed a law for providing universal social security to all workers which have been one of the key demands of the central trade unions.

However, small and medium enterprises, which are mainly kept out of social security schemes at present, had raised concerns over the government’s proposal.

“The small-scale industrial undertakings should be kept out of the ambit of social security framework as the financial implication of such a move would be huge,” said Avinash K. Dalal, National President and Founder of All India MSME Association.

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The provident fund and pension contribution, administered by the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), is mandatory only for factories employing at least 20 workers at present. Further, medical benefits under the Employees’ State Insurance Act apply to factories with at least 10 workers and it is also applicable to shops, hotels, restaurants, cinemas and road transport undertakings.

“We have received favourable reactions (on the proposed law), except probably (from) the small entrepreneurs who feel that they may have to bear a little bit of financial burden due to contribution (towards social security schemes),” Labour Secretary M. Sathiyavathy had said during a consultative meeting on draft social security code, organised by the Labour Ministry last month.

According to the Sixth Economic Census, 98.62% of the total establishments in India — both agricultural and non-agricultural sectors — employ less than 10 workers.

Providing social security to all workers will be one of the key themes of the 47th Indian Labour Conference (ILC) which will likely be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi later this year.

 

31 January 2017

Dear Supporters of Safe-in-India

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Thanks to your generous support, our start-up, Safe-in-India, is now well set to accelerate its impact in 2017.  We finally launched our first Worker Assistance Centre:-) Our Launch Video here. Slightly long as it is really made for the workers (once sub-titled in Hindi) but is also a good summary of our 2016.

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Progress in 2016:

Last year, we not only put the required building blocks in place, but also tested our operational model enough to feel confident that we are on the right track and that we can make a material difference to the lives of poor workers who have no other similarly aimed organisation in Gurgaon-Manesar supporting them after their accidents where they lose their hands and fingers.

In the first quarter, we agreed on an operational plan building on the research completed 2015, created a strong board of advisors who helped us develop a strategy, built early relationships with stakeholders in Gurgaon, conducted worker focus groups to fine tune our strategy, delivered a talk on Safe-in-India at IIM Ahmedabad and obtained funding-commitments from the 1991 batch of IIM Ahmedabad. In late March, we had out first recruit, Masab Shamsi, to start the operations. We launched our website and Facebook page.

In the second quarter, real work started on the ground from a temporary shared office. We contacted more than 100 injured workers, investigated their cases to identify issues with the ESI processes for health-care and compensation, reasons for their accidents, and their personal trials and tribulations. 20 of them agreed to take our active assistance while others probably didn't trust us enough then. We realised we had to build credibility with workers to be able to help them. After much debate, we pivoted our model to focus only on two areas: supporting injured workers in automobile sector for their ESI Health-care and ESI Compensation. To improve outreach, Ram Babu, himself an injured worker, joined us as a paid Outreach Volunteer. The quarter ended with our first small success: we obtained compensation of Rs 7000, for a worker who was being forced to pay for the treatment of his injury at work.

In the third quarter, things started taking shape. Our contact list of workers grew to 240+ of which 48 asked for our active assistance. We started getting a much deeper understanding of the ESI processes. By the end of the quarter, we had helped 5 workers receive more than 5.8 lacs of compensation and had a pipeline of 25 lacs+. We made Ram Babu a permanent staff. But the ESI processes were proving to be far more complicated than we had realised. We knew we were on the right track but needed to accelerate our effectiveness. A huge highlight of the quarter was the start of a formal partnership with Ajeevika Bureau, an organisation of considerable repute in the areas of labour and seasonal migration, who agreed to incubate our start-up. 

In the final quarter of the year, we decided to focus on 'closing the leads' to learn enough to accelerate effective activity in 2017. After cleaning up early data, we now have 500+ workers on our database and full files for 90+ files of workers who were stuck in the system for months and in some cases for years. Our follow up processes were increasingly aligned to ESI's own internal operational manuals. Safe-in-India initiative was formalised as a project under Ajeevika Bureau providing us a registered platform. Amitesh Kumar joined as our Head of Centre Operations. And then the highlight of the year - we inaugurated our first Worker Assistance Centre. See launch video here.

We are delighted that we are now a formal organisation with a fully functioning Worker Assistance Centre and a team that is working hard to help injured workers of auto-sector in Gurgaon-Manesar. Results are accelerating. We have now provided in-hospital process assistance to 100+ workers, conducted 15+ worker information-sharing and focus groups, resolved 20+ compensation cases, obtained Rs.7.8 Lacs in claims, and have a pipeline of more than Rs 50 lacs. 

So what should 2017 look like?

We expect to have 1500+ workers on our database and to whom we would have provided assistance in health-care processes, of which we expect to be actively helping 250+ workers in their compensation processes, with a compensation pipeline in excess of Rs 4cr and actual recovery in excess of Rs 1.5cr. These are ambitious targets for the first full year of the start-up operations in an area where a typical workers earns Rs 9000 per month for twelve hour a day shift. However, the team is keen and excited and we know we can improved our effectiveness further. Our priorities for 2017 in order of importance are:

1. Help injured workers with ESI health-care.

2. Help injured workers obtain their ESI Compensation.

3. Provide a platform to injured workers to create their own support groups, empowering them with knowledge and support.

4. Find a partner who can re-skill and redeploy them (most of them lose their jobs)

5. Find a partner for psychological trauma care immediately after the accident.

However, this is not the end-game. This data and intensive work, will also help us:

1. Evidence the issues with the ESI processes and push the case for improving ESI capacity and services. 

2. Build our case with the regional OEMs like Maruti and Honda, to start the discussion on improving safety in their tier 2/3 suppliers. 

We have a plan, an energetic team and ambition to make an impact on lives of these poor workers.  

Thank you for your continued support. God Bless and have a great 2017.

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6 December 2016

The Safe-in-India team, in partnership with Aajeevika Bureau has opened its first Worker Assistance Centre, focussed on providing guidance to workers injured in automobile sector manufacturing in Gurgaon and Manesar, India to obtain health care and compensation from ESI (Employee State Insurance)

In the past few months, when Safe-in-India was operating from temporary premises, the team has contacted 300+ such injured workers, who have lost hands or fingers in factory accidents. Of these, the team is actively assisting more than 60 workers. After months of effort, 8 workers have finally received compensation more than Rs 6 lacs. More than 50 lacs worth of compensation is in pipeline and we expect another 15 lacs compensation for another 4 workers before the end of the year. These are significant amounts for workers who, in most cases, have lost their jobs after the accidents and need every little help they can get to restart their lives and support their families. 

The experience of last few months has confirmed again that these accidents are mostly happening in smaller manufacturing units with poor safety standards on press machines and plastic moulding machines. Of the 300 workers contacted, about 70% are on press machines and about 20% on plastic moulding machines. In more than 80% of the cases, a critical document "Accident Form' is missing which needs constant and vigorous follow-up with the factory management.

At the launch event, attended by more than 50 injured workers, mostly with missing a number of fingers or hands, like minded NGOs - Ajeevika Bureau, Gram Tarang and Agrasar,
Centre-Head Masab Shamsi said "After months of work, we now have a Centre in Manesar, conveniently located near the ESI dispensary. This will be really help the workers to meet me and my team easily and for them to meet each other in a supportive environment".

Mr Mahavir Dahiya, Ex-Director ESI, and Advisor to Safe-in-India, who also attended the event and clarified workers' questions on ESI scheme, congratulated the Safe-in-India team for the initiative and said "ESI is a very good scheme for workers injured in factory accidents. However, the workers needs to understand the process better and to use it smartly for their benefit. The Safe-in-India team is adding a very good value to workers by educating them on ESI and hand-holding them through the process which can sometime become complicated for workers in distress".

Safe-in-India was started to help workers injured in automobile sector in Gurgaon and Manesar obtain better health care and compensation. The initial focus of the team is providing guidance to workers on how to obtain their rightful services from ESI because often these workers are not informed enough to get the most of ESI even when they are eligible. Many a times, this needs obtaining the right documents through intensive follow-up that sometimes the injured workers are not informed and strong enough to obtain. As this activity starts delivering results, the Safe-in-India team will start expanding its activity in areas of reselling and redeployment of these workers and creating a platform for injured workers to learn from each other and re-establish their lives.

Sandeep Sachdeva, CEO Safe-in-India, said "We are delighted to now have a physical presence, which will help us accelerate our impact. We have learnt a lot in the past six months of operations and now its time for our team to step us the game. This would not have been possible without our supporters from IIM Ahmedabad 1991 batch, ESI officials, Aajeevika Bureau and our advisors".

24 October 2016

Dear Supporters of Safe-in-India

The biggest highlight of the last quarter was establishing a partnership with Aajeevika Bureau, an organisation of immense repute in arena of labour and seasonal migration in India. This will helps us scale up much more quickly and robustly and have bigger and better impact on injured workers. Read more here

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In the first five months of operations starting with one staff and now two, we have proactively contacted 240 workers, who have lost hands or fingers in accidents in automotive sector in Gurgaon-Manesar. Most of them were not aware of their eligibility under ESI facilities and of its processes. We have arranged a number of focus groups to educate them and this has started having an impact.

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Of the above, 48 workers have sought significant help from us in obtaining compensation from ESI and we are pleased that we have already succeeded in helping workers receive 5.8 lacs for 5 workers in the last two months. We are excited about this evidence of the need of our services and its effectivenss.

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We now have more than Rs 25 lacs of compensation claims under progress. As we understand the issues and the ESIC processes better, and earn credibility with both the worker community and ESIC, we are will deliver more and faster. This is just the beginning. If you have any good contacts in or good knowledge of ESIC, please contact us. 

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We are pleased to have been able to employ an injured worker, Ram Babu, as our first outreach expert in the worker community and he is doing a great job. We are now looking to recruit two more - an asociate coordinator and a field executive. If you know any quality person, please forward them these details

Thank you for your continued support - especially the IIM Ahmedabad 91 batch! We need more supporters!

Next update in Jan 2017.  

2 October 2016

Safe-in-India ("SII") team is proud to announce its new partnership with Aajeevika Bureau, India's leading public service organisation dedicated to ensuring the security and dignity of migrant workers and their families. 

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Aajeevika Bureau (www.aajeevika.org) is an organization of considerable repute and experience in the arena of labour and seasonal migration. Headquarted in Udaipur, Aajeevika Bureau was established in 2005 and its operations have grown across the Rajasthan-Gujarat-Maharashtra labour migration corridor. AB has designed and implemented a rich range of services for migration services-registration and photo ID for inter-state migrants, skill training for youth at the threshold of work, legal aid for workers in the world of unorganized and informal work, financial services, health care and social security. AB’s model for serving vulnerable migrant groups has received national attention and recognition by civil society organisations, industry, governments and policy bodies. Beyond its direct operations in high migration source locations in Rajasthan and urban destinations in Gujarat-Maharashtra (Ahmedabad, Surat and Mumbai), Aajeevika Bureau’s research and policy group contributes knowledge and policy inputs on seasonal migration and informal work in India.

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The AB-SII partnership will provide AB's highly valued incubation to the SII start-up team in Gurgaon-Manesar. The incubation support will include operational and technical guidance based on AB's unique and multi-state experience of migrant problems. SII will assist AB in developing its response to accident and injury among workers, ESI care and compensation, accident research and area specific migration issues of Gurgaon-Manesar.

Both SII and AB are delighted to start this partnership and would like to thank their Boards and teams for supporting this initiative, which will accelerate the impact on the lives and safety of migrant workers in India, while also making both operational teams and propositions stronger. 

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(Team Safe-in-India is led by Sandeep Sachdeva with support from his co-founders Ravi Gulati and Prabhat Agarwal and the Batch of IIM Ahmedabad 1991. Team Aajeevika Bureau is led by Rajiv Khandelwal with support from co-founders and directors Krishnavatar Sharma and Dr Pavitra Mohan)

here

12 July 2016

Dear Supporters of Safe-in-India

Thank you for your continued support. Here we are again with our second quarter update:

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- Our Worker Assistance Centre activities began in May16 from our temporary office in Gurgaon with outreach to injured workers coming to the Manesar ESI Hospital and in the local community.

- We have now contacted 100+ injured workers and of these 20+ have asked us for assistance and we are actively progressing their cases with ESI for better medical care and to assist them in their due ESI compensation.
 

- We now understand the ESI processes much better and have identified a number of potential interventions we can make on behalf of the injured workers. Thankfully, we also have a number of good-hearted ESI staff assisting us in this porocess, and have been able to buid relationships with some of their senior management, should that be needed.
 

- There are already some small signs of success! We have started receiving calls from some of the injured workers asking for our help; this was not the case even a month back. Today, we had ourt first real compensation success - we managed to obtain INR7,000 for a worker who was being forced to pay for the treatment of his work-injury; a small amount for many of us, but a whole month's salary for a typical unskilled worker in Manesar. This is just the beginning but team is rightfully delighted to have proven the point that it can be done!
 

- In addition to our Centre Head, Masab Shamsi, we now also have a full time paid volunteer, Ram Babu, himself an injured worker. Ram is now spearheading our outreach in the community. Recruitment for Associate Coordinator has begun. His role will be to run the processes in the Centre, assist the injured workers and to maintain robust records. We are also looking for two field executives. Our search for a senior Manager- Strategic Initiatives has not succeeded so far, but we continue to look. We will recruit only those who have a real interest in this area and a high level of integrity. In return, we will offer them a professional working environment where they can grow to be accomplished professional in the social sector. All roles are advertised under 'Join us' tab on our website.
 

- And finally, we have now found the right location and property for our Worker Assistance Centre. Hurray :-) We hope to move to this new office in Aug/Sep 2016 and are looking forward to being right in the middle of the worker community! 

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We continue to have a clear plan for the remaining part of the year and as we said in the last update, we will update you on real stories of success and impact in second half of this year. 

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Thank you for your continued and enthusiastic support. Do stay in touch with us through our website (www.safeinindia.org), our Facebook page (facebook.com/safeinindia) or our email: team@safeinindia.org

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have a great second half of 2016!

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Prabhat Agarwal

Ravi Gulati

Sandeep Sachdeva

18 March 2016

Dear Supporters of Safe-in-India

Thank you for your continued support. Here we are again with our latest update:

- Created a very credible Board of Advisors including Mr Rajeev Khandelwal, a renowned migrant worker NGO founder Mrs Reena George, a well-known lawyer with penchant and successful track record for social causes, and Dr Vijay Aruldas, a local Gurgaon-based social sector expert more than two decades of experience in health sector. 

- Completed our second fund raising campaign.  We now have more than 50 financial supporters who have committed Rupees 50 lacs for 2016, and many of them have also promised their time and expertise to Safe-in-India. We will publish their names and areas of support to us in the next newsletter.

- Completed recruitment of Co-ordinator: Safe-in-India Worker Information and Assistance Centre. Masab Shamsi, a qualified MSW, with experience of social sector and ESI (Employee State Insurance) issues will join us on 11th March, and immediately immerse himself in the worker community of Gurgaon/Manesar, help us decide the location of the Centre, start the Centre within the next six months and recruit two Field Executives.

- Built deeper relationships with ESI at senior levels and agreed to work together; and relevant government and private sector executives to execute our stare effectively.

- Recruitment effort started for Manager: Strategic Initiatives , who will drive our strategic projects and partnerships for scaling up our operations, and have received more than a 100 applications.

- Expended very limited effort on our Facebook page, but it has gained a reasonable traction with almost 50 friends and a peak of 400+ likes of an update. We intend to use social media more intensively to generate support, once we have the above Centre in place.

- Delivered a talk about Safe-In-India at IIMA where we addressed 350+ first year MBA students and were encouraged to see their active involvement in the issue; they have sent us their suggestions, which we have built into our plans. A similar talk at EDI received an equally positive response. We are excited about these young people supporting this and similar causes in the future.

We have a clear plan for the remaining part of the year and will update you on real stories of success and impact in second half of this year. 

Thank you for your continued and enthusiastic support. Do stay in touch with us through our website (www.safeinindia.org), our Facebook page (facebook.com/safeinindia) or our email: team@safeinindia.org

Once again, wishing you a great 2016 and we look forward to continue working together to make it happen!

Prabhat Agarwal

Ravi Gulati

Sandeep Sachdeva

Jan16

Dear Supporters of Safe-In-India

First we wish you and your loved ones a fabulous 2016!

2015 was a momentous year for us, when we first realised the extent of injuries to the hands and fingers of workers. Indeed the problem is not unique to auto-sector or Gurgaon/Manesar, and so as we spoke to you, and many many other stakeholders and experts and found the passion in us to do something about it. In mid-2015, Safe-In-India was born.

Since then, we have, with your valuable support, we have achieved the following: 

- Formed a group of concerned citizens, who are keen to take pragmatic actions to improve the situation of these workers and launched our website to communicate effectively with stakeholders. (www.safeinindia.org)

- Conducted an independent research to understand the issue and to recommend actions required. It is available on our website and has had more than a 100 distribution/downloads. This research had more than ten volunteers helping us in research, legals, design, and expert comments. Thank you guys and gals!

-  Launched the research findings in front of a full house (200+) of manufacturers and other concerned citizens (many of you attended too - thanks) on 29SEP15. This gave us a platform to build our actions on and we received some very helpful publicity in Times of India, Hindustan Times, Hindu and several other publications eg. thewire.in/2015/09/30/the-make-in-india-frontlines-are-producing-young-martyrs-too-12001

- Completed a crowd funding of about USD5000, to pay for the research and other actions, but more importantly to get a group of supporters for the cause (For clarity, please note that we, the Trustees, have not taken a single Rupee from these for any personal expense, and in fact spent considerable own addditional funds on this initiative).

- Visited Immigrant worker source centres in Rajasthan and another immigrant worker destination in Ahmedabad. We learnt that workers everywhere are facing similar challenges and we need to start somewhere soon.

- Decided to launch an ESI Information and Assistance Centre in Gurgaon/Manesar and started recruiting for it in NOV15 (safeinindia.org/#!join-us/c1l7c). We have received more than 250 applications and have interviewed many and have found some very good candidates. We will continue to expand and continue looking, so if you know the right people to join the cause, do let us know.

- Created a very credible Board of Advisors including Mr Rajeev Khandelwal (schwabfound.org/content/rajiv-khandelwal) and Dr Vijay Aruldas (linkedin.com/in/vijay-aruldas-4523504). We will soon confirm a highly successful Lawyer as our advisor too and are looking for a senior relevant government official.

- Engaged sector experts like Mr Prerit Rana (linkedin.com/in/agrasarngo), an exert in area of migrants and skilling in Gurgaon.

The list goes on. We have also been busy creating the right infrastructure and will have our Trust registered soon. Fundraising for the first Rupees 50 lacs (USD80k) is in progress and that should set us up for the first year by the time our on the ground team is in place around MAR16.

We were also asked to talk about Safe-In-India at IIMA where we addressed 350+ first year MBA students and were enouraged to see their active involvement in the issue; they have promised to send us their suggestions soon!

Hope this gives you a sense of what we have been up to and that we are building on the enthusiastic support you have provided us.

Do stay in touch with us through our website (www.safeinindia.org), our Facebook page (facebook.com/safeinindia) or our email: team@safeinindia.org

Once again, wishing you a great 2016 and we look forward to continue working together to make it happen!

Prabhat Agarwal

Ravi Gulati

Sandeep Sachdeva

Dec 2015

It took our team less than 5 hours to find more than 10 injured workers in Manesar to meet up for a focus group discussion. We wanted to understand their experiences with ESI (Employee State Insurance) and how we could help. Over two hours one late evening, we learnt a lot. Here are some key learnings, a few of them reinforcing our findings in the September research, while others were new to us:

1. Some of them were paying for their ESI premiums, the rest were not sure if they were. Only one had a salary slip showing an ESI deduction and the rest had none. Some of them knew of PF deductions from their salaries but were not able to claim these funds when needed. They were not clear on the process and felt that their money had disappeared.

2. Apart from one, all of them were unhappy with ESI Hospital, the long waiting queues at ESI Hospital Manesar (sometime starting at 4am to get a doctor's appointment), inconvenient locations of dispensaries, poor medicine stocks at the dispensaries, etc. Most of them, despite their accidents, were not fully aware of ESI's benefits and the process.

3. One of the workers had lost one finger of each hand over three months on the same machine. He received his ESI card after the accident. This appears to be common - the ESI cards appear miraculously a few days after the accident. Another talked about every one of the 15 workers in his factory missing one or more fingers. We were obviously shocked but many of them, although saddened, seemed to see it as 'kismet'.
 

4. They agreed that they did not have the unity needed to ask firmly and successfully for their ESI or PF benefits. The unions were not effective for these contract workers and they were all worried about getting 'no entry' in their factories if they asked any questions from their supervisors.

5. They had not heard a lot about 'make in india', but when explained and asked about their opinion on it, they felt that it was a good initiative as it would provide them further employment opportunities.

We discussed with them how the Safe-In-India team can help them in the above and they came up with a number of suggestions, which we will now include in our design of the ESI Information and Assisitance Centre to be launched around MAR15.

November 15, 2015

We are now recruiting for a Worker ESI Facilitation Centre in Manesar/Gurgaon. For details see 'Join Us' tab on top:

1. Centre Co-ordinator, ESI Facilitation Centre: This person will lead the new proposed Centre to help workers in Gurgaon/Manesar get properly registered with ESI (Employee State Insurance) and obtain all ESI services and social security benefits. The person will need 2-5 years of field experience dealing with community issues and building awareness, and should have the skills to influence, manage a team and communicate effectively. Salary 35-50k per month. 

2. Field Executive, ESI Facilitation Centre: This person will help the above Centre Co-ordinator to achieve the Centre's objectives. He/She will spend most of their time with workers in their communities and factories, and should be able to understand the ESI processes and benefits, and be able to hand-hold any injured workers through the ESI process. Salary 10-20k per month. 

PLEASE SEND YOUR CVs with any references to team@safeinindia.org

29 September 2015

We completed our research and launched our research-findings at an event in Gurgaon on 29th September 2015, in front of an overflowing auditorium of 200 at Artemis, Gurgaon, and a distinguished panel from industry.  The Research Report was unveiled by three injured workers, Raja Shah, Vishweshwar and Ravi Chowdhury. Raja spoke about the importance of this work and how it can help save their fellow workers from the kind of experiences they are going through. ("Jo hamaare saath hua hay, woh hamare doosre bhaiyon key saath nahin hona chahiye"). Moderated by the eminent journalist, Mr. Siddharth Varadarajan, the panel included Mr MM Singh, Director, Maruti Centre for Excellence, Mr S Sandilya, NEX Chair- Eicher Motors, Mr Vinnie Mehta, Director General, Automotive Component Manufacturers Association of India (www.acma.in), Mr Rajiv Khandelwal, CEO, www.aajeevika.org, a leader in the area of improving the lives of migrant workers and Mr Atul Batra, Director, Arjan Auto Ltd.. The event received excellent media coverage in most large dailies incuding The Time of India, The Hindustan Times, The Hindu and thewire. To read more about the event and report findings, here is one of the news articles: http://thewire.in/2015/09/30/the-make-in-india-frontlines-are-producing-young-martyrs-too-12001/

July 13, 2015

Team SafeInIndia successfully raises Rs. 313,282 to fund the research being done by Agrasar. We thank all our supporters who have contributed to the cause. 

January 28, 2015

SafeInIndia has commisioned Gurgaon based NGO, Agrasar to do qualitative research on the issue of crush injuries in the Automotive Sector of Gurgaon-Manesar industrial belt. The study will do case studies of 20 such incidents to understand the issues and factors which play a role and recommend win-win solutions.

December 3, 2014

The inspiration to do something about worker safety, particularly about crush injuries, came about from a news article on scroll.in - "Your car has been built on an assembly line of broken fingers" written by Supriya Sharma.