Report of the Royal Commission on Labour in India

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 1850495947

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-233603

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Report of the Royal Commission on Labour in India

Place of publication:: London

Publisher:: His Majesty's Stationery Off.

Year of publication:: 1931

Scope:: xviii, 580 S.; graph. Darst., Kt.

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter XIV. - Health and welfare of the industrial worker

Collection:: Economics Books

HEALTH AND WELFARE. 265 social custom and economic conditions differ widely in the two countries- We received evidence that in parts of India women returned to work with the same employer only a few days after childbirth, and the pay- ment of maternity benefit may not at first be sufficient to restrain such early return. The qualifying period of employment might be fixed at twelve months, but it should in no case be less than nine months. Benefits and Medical Facilities. The more closely the benefit can be linked with medical treatment the better. This will obviously be less easy in the case of factory workers in large industrial towns than in the case of workers for whom hospital facilities are provided by the employers. Probably the best method is to give the woman a maternity benefit in any event and an additional confinement bonus only if a trained midwife is employed or hospital treat- ment is adopted. We do not think that failure to use existing facilities, whether municipal or private, should disqualify the applicant. The benefit and bonus together should not exceed the amount laid down in the Act. The administration of the Act should be entrusted to the factory inspection staff and, wherever possible, to women factory in- spectors. The Women’s Medical Service might profitably be asked to survey the field and to advise those local Governments most affected as to how maternity benefit schemes under the Act could best be combined with existing medical facilities. The Need of Provision for Sickness. The question of making provision for workers during sickness, even if it had not been previously raised by Government, would have been forced on us by what we found in every industrial centre. Of the great need of the workers for something of this kind there can be no doubt. By common consent the incidence of sickness is substantially higher than in Western countries ; the medical facilities are much less adequate, and the wages generally paid make it impossible for most workers to get through more than a very short period of illness without borrowing. Indeed, sickness is an important contributory cause of in- debtedness, with all that debt entails under existing conditions; for often, at his time of greatest need, the worker may find himself destitute of resources, unable to take proper measures to restore his health and in difficulties regarding even the means of subsistence. The situation calls for the exploration of all methods that may lead to the alleviation of the existing hardships. International Labour Conventions. ] These considerations were recognised by the Government of India in 1928 in considering the Draft Conventions and Recommenda- tions on the subject of sickness insurance which had been adopted by the International Labour Conference inthe preceding year. They stated that they were satisfied that the introduction in India of any compre- hensive scheme on the lines of the Conventions was not practicable

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