New Delhi, Jan 5 (KNN) Measures to make social security schemes available to workers in the unorganized sector are likely to figure in the budget to be presented next month, finance minister Arun Jaitley said on Monday.

Jaitley said that to make health and social security benefits accessible to un-organised sector workers like construction workers, migrant labourers, volunteers of different schemes like Anganwadi workers etc are one of the major priorities of the present Government.

He was discussing the issues with trade union representatives during pre-budget consultations.

Making social security schemes accessible to unorganised sector workers is a major challenge, which the Government is keen to address at this juncture where the unorganised sector is growing at a faster pace, said the Finance minister

 He said that Mechanisms can be thought of wherein social security benefit contributions to workers can be made by employers at a single window for all workers, he added.

He said, the present framework of social security is structured for different groupings –organized, unorganized and those not employed/BPL, which are functional requirements.

He said that there is a need to ensure a convergence of benefits for all these groupings, above a minimum threshold.

The main suggestions made by the trade unions included increasing the minimum wage to Rs.15,000, especially after the Seventh Pay Commission recommended the lowest scale start from Rs.18,000; extending the National Pension System to unorganized sector workers; and increasing education and health allocations to 6% and 3% of the total budget, respectively, from 1% at present.

Many other suggestions include need for over hauling of tax structure, and minimum tax exemption limit be raised to Rs. 5.00 lakh in case of employees. (With PIB Inputs)