{"id":76461,"date":"2021-01-12T18:30:14","date_gmt":"2021-01-12T13:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=76461"},"modified":"2021-01-13T11:05:57","modified_gmt":"2021-01-13T05:35:57","slug":"formalising-the-work-of-community-workers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/formalising-the-work-of-community-workers\/","title":{"rendered":"Formalising the work of community workers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Synopsis:\u00a0<\/strong>Government should strive to formalise the work of community workers such as\u00a0<strong>Anganwadi, ASHA and National Health Mission workers<\/strong>\u00a0to make them accessible for various\u00a0<strong>social security benefits<\/strong>\u00a0such as safety, insurance, risk allowance and fixed wages etc.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Background<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In India, there are about a lakh\u00a0<strong>ASHA worker<\/strong>, 1.3 million\u00a0<strong>Anganwadi workers<\/strong>\u00a0and another 1.2 million\u00a0<strong>Anganwadi helpers<\/strong>. (Community workers)<\/li>\n<li>At present, community workers are classified as\u00a0<strong>\u201chonorary workers\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0and are denied of\u00a0<strong>minimum wages<\/strong>, leave and other conditions that is available to formal workers.<\/li>\n<li>Even in the best paid states, this\u00a0<strong>honorarium<\/strong>\u00a0is not even close to the government-mandated\u00a0<strong>minimum wages<\/strong>\u00a0offered to workers doing comparable jobs.<\/li>\n<li>Also, the state by preferring to call them as \u201cvolunteers \u201cdenies the opportunity to recognise their crucial work as\u00a0<strong>care service providers<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>This led to the two-day\u00a0<strong>nationwide strike<\/strong>\u00a0by\u00a0<strong>Anganwadi, ASHA and National Health Mission<\/strong>\u00a0workers demanding safety, insurance, risk allowance and fixed wages during the pandemic<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>What is the importance of community workers to society?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Firstly, during the COVID-19 the\u00a0<strong>Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA) and Anganwadi<\/strong>\u00a0workers, women \u201cvolunteers\u201d functioned as the\u00a0<strong>frontline warriors<\/strong>\u00a0in the battle against the pandemic.<\/li>\n<li>Second, these community workers serve as the\u00a0<strong>connecting link between the community<\/strong>\u00a0and the state machinery. This was very much visible when there was uncertainty and fear of the virus.<\/li>\n<li>Third, the services of community workers are essential to\u00a0<strong>facilitate localised approaches<\/strong>\u00a0to problems as they have robust contacts at the grass roots.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>What is the way forward?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Firstly, there is an urgent need to\u00a0<strong>recognise Community workers as workers<\/strong>. It can be done by Implementing the recommendation of\u00a0<strong>Parliamentary Standing Committee on Labour<\/strong>\u00a0to formalise the work of community workers.<\/li>\n<li>Second, Recognition of care work in the public sphere could also help in settling the issue of gendered and unequal division of house work and\u00a0<strong>unpaid care burden<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It is high time that the state recognises the contributions of these women and accept them as workers. The recognition\u00a0<strong>of ASHA and Anganwadi volunteers<\/strong>\u00a0as workers will be a tribute to their contribution during the\u00a0<strong>pandemic<\/strong>\u00a0and also it gives a fresh start towards the structural understanding of\u00a0<strong>women\u2019s labour<\/strong>\u00a0and their status in the labour market leading to\u00a0<strong>Gender sensitive policy making<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Synopsis:\u00a0Government should strive to formalise the work of community workers such as\u00a0Anganwadi, ASHA and National Health Mission workers\u00a0to make them accessible for various\u00a0social security benefits\u00a0such as safety, insurance, risk allowance and fixed wages etc. Background In India, there are about a lakh\u00a0ASHA worker, 1.3 million\u00a0Anganwadi workers\u00a0and another 1.2 million\u00a0Anganwadi helpers. (Community workers) At present, community&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/formalising-the-work-of-community-workers\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Formalising the work of community workers<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":76472,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,1351,1310,9],"tags":[1303,1289],"class_list":["post-76461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-daily-news","category-daily-news-updates","category-public","tag-eco_8","tag-soc_0","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Formalising-the-work-of-community-workers.jpg?fit=1280%2C720&ssl=1","views":{"total":4,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1700118116},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76461\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}