Hon.
Members, let us take a common market situation where the law
is very important. This is the issue of workers’ wages. Private
companies, contractors, and businessmen normally want to make as much
profit as they can. In the drive for profits, they might deny workers their
rights and not pay them wages. In the eyes of the law, it is illegal or
wrong to deny workers their wages. Similarly, to ensure that workers are not underpaid,
or are paid fairly, there is a law on minimum wages. A worker has to be paid not
less than the minimum wage by the employer. The minimum wages are revised
upwards every few years. As with the law on minimum wages, which is meant
to protect the workers, there are also laws that protect the interests
of producers and consumers in the market.140
These laws help in ensuring that the relations between workers, consumers, and
producers are governed in a manner that is160
not exploitative. But merely making laws is not enough. The Government has
to ensure that these laws are implemented. This means that the law must be
enforced.
Enforcement
becomes even more important when the law seeks to protect the weak from the
strong. For instance, to ensure that every worker gets fair wages, the Government
has to regularly inspect work sites and punish those who violate the law. When
workers are poor or powerless, the fear of losing future earnings or facing
reprisals often forces them to accept low wages. Employers know this well and
use their power to pay workers less than the fair wage. In such cases,
it is crucial that laws are enforced. Through making, enforcing and280 upholding these laws, the Government can
control the activities of individuals or private companies so as to
ensure social justice. Many of these laws have their basis in the Fundamental
Rights guaranteed by the Indian Constitution. For instance, the Right320 against Exploitation says that no one
can be forced to work for low wages or under bondage. Similarly, the
Constitution lays down that no child below the age of 14 years shall be
employed to work in any factory or mines or engaged in any other
hazardous employment.
In
recent years, while the courts have come out with
strong orders on environmental issues, these have sometimes affected people’s
livelihoods adversely. For instance, the courts directed industries in
residential areas in Delhi to close down or shift out of the
city. Several of these industries were polluting the neighbourhood and
discharge420 from these
industries was polluting the river Yamuna, because they had been set up
without following the rules. But, while the court’s action solved one problem,
it created another. Because of the closure, many workers lost their jobs. Others
were forced to go to distant places where these factories had relocated. The
same problem now began to come up in480
these areas. Now these places became polluted and the issue of the safety conditions
of workers remained unaddressed. Recent research on environmental issues in
India has highlighted the fact that the growing concern for the environment
among the middle classes is often at the expense of the poor. For example,
slums need to be cleaned as part of a city’s beautification drive, or a
polluting factory is moved to the outskirts of the city. While this
awareness of the need560 for a
clean environment is increasing, there is little concern for the safety
of the workers themselves. The challenge is to look for solutions where
everyone can benefit from a clean environment. One way this can be done is to
gradually move to cleaner technologies and processes in
factories. The Government has to encourage and support factories to do this. It
will need to fine those who pollute. This will ensure that the workers’
livelihoods are protected and both workers640
and communities living around the factories enjoy a safe environment.
Laws
are necessary in many situations, whether this be the market, office or
factory, so as to protect people from unfair practices. Private
companies, contractors, and business persons always look for ways and
methods to make higher profits. For this, they resort to unfair practices such
as paying workers low700
wages, employing children for work, ignoring the conditions of work, ignoring
the damage to the environment and to the people in the neighbourhood etc.
Therefore, a major role of the Government is to control the activities
of private companies by making, enforcing and upholding laws so as to prevent
unfair practices and ensure social justice. This means that the Government
has to make ‘appropriate laws’ and also has to enforce the laws. Laws that are
weak and poorly enforced can cause serious harm, as the Bhopal gas tragedy
showed. While the Government has a leading role in this respect, people800 can exert pressure so that both private
companies and the Government act in the interests of society. Environment
is one example where people have pushed a public cause and the courts have
upheld the right to healthy environment as intrinsic840 to the Right to Life. People now must
demand that this facility of healthy environment be extended to all. Likewise,
workers’ rights is an area where the situation is still very unfair. People
must demand stronger laws protecting workers’ interests so that the Right to
Life is achieved for all.
There
are some essential facilities like water, healthcare
and sanitation that need to be provided for everyone. Similarly,
there are things like electricity, public transport, schools and colleges
that are also necessary. These are known as public facilities. The
important characteristic of a public facility is that once it is provided,
its benefits can be shared by many people. For instance, a school in the
village will enable many children960
to get educated. Similarly, the supply of electricity to an area can be useful
for many people: farmers can run980
pump sets to irrigate their fields, people can open small workshops that run on
electricity, students will find it easier to study and most people in the
village will benefit in some way or the other. Given that public
facilities are so important, someone must carry the responsibility of
providing these to the people. This ‘someone’ is the Government. One of the
most important functions of the Government is to ensure that these public
facilities are made available to everyone. Let us try and understand why the Government,
and only the Government, must bear this responsibility. We have seen that
private companies operate for profit in the market. In most of the public
facilities, there is no profit to be had. For example, what profit can
accrue to a company for keeping the drains clean? A private company will
probably1120 not be interested
in undertaking such work. But, for other public facilities such as schools
and hospitals, private companies may well be interested. We have
many of these, particularly in large cities. Similarly, if you are
living in a city, you will have seen private companies supplying water
through tankers or supplying drinking water in sealed bottles. In
such cases, private companies provide public facilities but at a price that
only some people can afford. Hence, this facility is not available to all at an
affordable rate. If we go by the rule that people will get as much as
they can pay for, then many people who cannot afford to pay for such
facilities will be deprived of the opportunity to live a decent life. Clearly,
this is not a desirable option. Public facilities relate to people’s
basic needs. 1260 Any modern
society requires that these facilities are provided so that people’s basic
needs are met. The Right to1280
Life that the Constitution guarantees is for all persons living in this
country. Therefore, the responsibility to provide public facilities must be
that of the Government. Every year, The Government Budget is presented in
the Parliament. This is an account of the expenses the Government has made
on its programmes in the past year and how much it plans to spend in
the coming year. In the Budget, the Government also announces the various
ways in which it plans to meet these expenses. The main source of revenue
for the Government is the taxes collected from the people, and the Government
is empowered to collect these taxes and use them for such programmes.
For instance, to supply water, the Government has1400 to incur costs in pumping water,
carrying it over long distances, laying down pipes for distribution,
treating the water for impurities, and finally, collecting and treating waste
water. It meets these expenses partly from the various taxes that it1440 collects and partly by charging a price
for water. This price is set so that most people can afford a certain minimum
amount of water for daily use. Public facilities relate to our basic needs and
the Indian Constitution recognises the right to water, heath, education etc. as
being a part of the Right to Life. Thus, one of the major roles of the Government
is to ensure adequate public facilities for everyone. But, progress on this
front has been far from satisfactory. There is a shortage in supply and
there are inequalities in distribution. Compared to the metros and large
cities, towns and villages are under-provided. Compared to wealthy
localities, the poorer localities are under-serviced. Handing over these
facilities to private companies may not be the answer. Any solution
needs to take account of the important fact that every citizen of the
country has a right to these facilities which should be provided to him
or her in an1600 equitable
manner.
