The Government is all set to roll out yet another social security plan that promises to provide a lifelong pension of minimum Rs 1000 a month to the unorganised sector workers. The pension can be still higher if the worker is able to voluntarily save more through higher contribution.
The scheme is planned to be launched by finance minister Pranab Mukherjee in the first week of July from Rai Bareli, the Lok Sabha constituency of Congress President Sonia Gandhi.
R Gopalan, Secretary, financial services, who is coordinating the scheme for its implementation, said that in three years the "Swavalamban" (self-help) is expected to benefit more than 50 lakh unorganised sector workers.
The scheme will be available for only three years and its continuation further will depend on the response it gets from the unorganized sector, sources in the finance ministry said.

The government will stand guarantee to pay the pension as the scheme is to be run by the government's own Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) under the supervision of the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA).
A worker has to contribute Rs 100 a month for 20 years to become eligible for drawing the pension until death on completion of 60 years of age. The Centre will put Rs 1000 a year for the first three years in each such pension account opened as part of the government's commitment to provide social security to the vulnerable sections of the society.
Mukherjee has provided Rs 100 crore in the 2010-11 union budget that will be sufficient to benefit 10 lakh workers. While presenting the budget in the Lok Sabha on February 26, he had appealed to the state governments to contribute a similar amount to make the scheme more robust.
"Swavalamban" (self-help) is the name Mukherjee gave to this initiative that he hopes to make as popular as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme.

Though he does not expect an unorganised worker to be able to pay more than Rs 100 a month to enjoy the pension benefits that the government employees enjoy, Mukherjee has set the minimum limit of Rs 1000 a year and the maximum limit of Rs 12,000 as contribution to the scheme.
Sources said it is the same New Pension Scheme (NPS) that was thrown open to all citizens of India on May 1 last year in the age group of 18 to 55 years who are not part of any scheme for economic security after retirement from work.
They said Mukherjee wanted it to become more attractive to those in the unorganised sector by offering the government's contribution of Rs 1000 per annum in each such account and asking the state government to chip in identical sum to provide social security to the downtrodden having no resources to fall back in the old age.
Realising that the scheme proved a non-starter for the unorganized labour in its first year, Mukherjee spoke to the Prime Minister if the government can make it popular by contributing from its own side in any account so opened, sources said. Only 3,784 from the unorganized sector had become the subscribers under the scheme until February 19.
Financial Services Secretary R Gopalan is coordinating with IRDA (Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority), PFRDA, and LIC to put the scheme into operation for the unorganised sector.
He has already written to IRDA chairman J Hari Narayanan to give clearance to the scheme at the earliest. Gopalan says there are 14 lakh LIC agents in India and the government plans to give them incentive to attract the unorganised workers to subscribe to the "Swavalamban" scheme. If each agent is able to enrol at least three or four workers, there will be not less than 50 lakh subscribers.
Though the government has set the target of only 10 lakh subscribers from the unorganised sector in 2010-11 by providing Rs 100 crore in the budget as its own contribution to such accounts, Gopalan says finding funds to contribute to more people joining the scheme will face no difficulty.
This pension scheme is the second major initiative of the UPA government towards the unorganised sector workers after its contribution of Rs 1000 crore in 2008 in the unorganised sector workers social security fund which will help support schemes for the self-help workers like weavers, toddy tappers, rickshaw-pullers and bidi workers.

The construction labourers who were left out in the first scheme will be encouraged to join the "Swavalamban" pension scheme, sources added.