Statistics hint towards Action than Planning

• One in every 6 people over the age of 60 in the world lives in India
• The aged of today have no choice but to depend on their own lifetime savings to survive for nearly 20 years if they stop working at age 60
• We are likely to have nearly 20 crore elderly in India within the next 2 decades
• Of the 36 crore paid workers in India today, only 11% belong to the organised sector
• Workers in the unorganized sector live in the fear of working throughout their lives, thus a formal pension scheme is a must

Lack of Social Security for Unorganized Sector in India  
One in every 6 people over the age of 60 in the world lives in India. A majority of our 8 crore elderly today however do not receive a pension -- either from the Government or from their employers. Traditionally, most of us have depended on the joint family system and support from our children when we stop working. But today, our children are often forced to migrate when they start earning and as a result, nearly 2 in every 3 households is a nuclear household in India. Therefore, we can no longer depend on family support in our old age.

The aged of today have no choice but to depend on their own lifetime savings to survive for nearly 20 years if they stop working at age 60. And if they have not saved enough during their working lives by then, they face the grave risk of outliving their savings and of facing poverty at a period of their lives when they may be physically unable to work. This is even more true for those engaged in manual work including farmers, head-loaders, rickshaw-pullers, weavers, construction workers and farm labour.

For the Government, this is a very serious social and fiscal concern. Within the next few years, the problems of dealing with poverty are likely to be overshadowed by the problem of dealing with poverty among the elderly. Especially since our current population of 8 crore elderly is going to witness rapid growth and we are likely to have nearly 20 crore elderly in India within the next 2 decades. The plight of our current aged is partly driven by our labour market structures. Of the 36 crore paid workers in India today, only the 11% organised sector workers, including Government servants and salaried employees in large private firms, enjoy pension rights and benefits.

However, most of India's workforce is employed in the unorganised sector and has been traditionally excluded from formal pension and provident fund arrangements. These include self-employed workers like farmers, farm labourers, self-employed women, contract and casual labour and small retailers. If these workers do not have access to any formal pension scheme, many of them will have no option but to continue to work throughout their lives.

The above mentioned points indicate that we need to ACT now!

The UTI Micro Pension initiative is to secure the future of the workers who are grilled in the unorganized sector.

Details of Micropension Initiative

UTI Mutual Fund (UTI MF) has entered into an arrangement with the following organisations for providing its members an investment opportunity through a Micro-Pension initiative under UTI-Retirement Benefit Pension Fund:

• Union Bank of India,
• The Bihar State Co-operative Milk Producers’ Federation Ltd.(COMPFED), Paradeep Port and Dock Mazdoor Union,
• Bank of India,
• Shree Mahila Sewa Sahakari Bank Ltd. and
• Self-Help Promotion for Health and Rural Development (SHEPHERD)