Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières
NTUI’s Call
The NTUI has always recognised the primacy of defending democracy and advancing democratic rights for protecting the objectives of a just and egalitarian society and advancing the rights of the working class. And yet the NTUI also recognises that none of the dominant political parties are reflective of the economic, social and political crisis and the necessity for advancing national development rooted in self-reliance and sustainability that can meet needs of the working class. Hence, the choices before the electorate are limited. With democracy as its core principle, the NTUI will strive to ensure that secular and democratic forces, reflective of the plurality within the country, come to government in this election.
At the same time the NTUI also recognises that neither can it influence this outcome on its own nor can it be achieved by merely all progressive trade unions coming together. The task of building a struggle for a just economy, an egalitarian society and a democratic polity that must go on beyond the general election calls for the widest possible united front of all progressive forces. The NTUI commits itself to this.
Defeat Communal and Right Wing Forces Defend Democracy
Resist Imperialist Globalisation
Build a United Struggle for A Just Economy, an Egalitarian Society and a Democratic Polity
1. Protection of Basic Labour Rights
i. Freedom of Association and Collective Bargaining
– Ratification of ILO Convention 87 on Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948 and Convention 98 on Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949.
– Repeal of all legislation like ESMA that violates the Right to strike
– Automatic Registration of Trade Unions to be completed within the timetable laid out under the Trade Unions Act 1926 and rules thereof with written reasons to be provided for refusal of granting registration
– Compulsory recognition of trade unions by employers and automatic reference to secret ballot where there is more than one trade union
ii. Forced Labour
– 8 hour workday for all
– No forced overtime work
– Non-payment of minimum wages to be made a cognisable offence in consonance with the Reptakos Bret case in which the Supreme Court ruled that non-payment of minimum wage amounts to a condition of forced labour.
iii. Equal Remuneration
– Equal pay for equal work for women workers, wherein the minimum wage, in any establishment is accepted as, at least, the lowest wage to a regular worker.
iv. Discrimination
– Equal benefits to contract workers comparable to those paid to regular workers and cannot in any case be lower than statutory levels of payment of PF, ESI and Gratuity.
– PF, ESI and Gratuity contribution for Piece rated workers not to be lower than that for the minimum wage.
– Equal conditions to contract workers in terms of access to canteens, uniforms, company transport, childcare and crèche facilities, etc
2. Amendment to Labour Laws
i. Remove all ceiling under the Payment of Bonus Act
ii. Amend the Industrial Disputes Act to ensure that complaints under sections 25 T and 25 U of the act can be raised directly in the Industrial Tribunal and do not have to go through conciliation proceedings before the Labour Commissioner.
iii. Amend the Shops and Establishment Act to ensure that protection in consonance with chapter VB of the Industrial Disputes Act is extended.
iv. Recognition of sales promotion workers as ‘workmen’ under the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 in keeping with the Industrial Disputes (West Bengal Amendment) Act, 1981
v. Amend Section 48 of the Factories Act, 1948 and Section 12 of the Plantation Labour Act, 1951 for provision of crèche facility for workers so as to ensure that it is gender neutral. Provide crèche facility with adequate space and care providers in every workplace that employs more than 10 workers, regular or contract, men or women, with children less than 6 years of age.
3. Minimum Wage
i. A national level floor minimum wage (NFLMW) determined on the basis of the 15th ILC norms for setting the minimum wage along with subsequent Supreme Court orders for all employments below which no minimum wage can fall in any state or employment. The national floor level minimum wage will apply to all employments that are not notified in any employment or state. In any case, no Minimum Wage should be less than that paid presently under the 6th Pay Commission and by its successor commissions.
ii. The NFLMW to be recommended by a Wage Commission constituted by legislation which ensures a wage parity ratio not exceeding 1:24 in urban areas.
iii. Link minimum wages to Dearness Allowance with 100% neutralisation; Half yearly revision of minimum wages keeping in accordance to the revision of Dearness Allowance.
iv. 5 yearly revisions of the minimum wages by the Advisory Board should be made mandatory. In case the Board fails to revise, then the VDA of 5 years should be merged with the Basic along with a flat 16% increment (3% annual increment).
v. Government to promote industry level wage agreement with lowest level of the industry wage being higher than the base level of the regional minimum wage to incorporate the productivity gains of the industry.
vi. Payment of minimum wages to be made through cheques for all workers.
vii. The right to inspect and prosecute cases of minimum wage violation should be extended to registered trade unions
viii. Constitute Minimum Wage Boards on the pattern of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka for tea workers in Assam and West Bengal
4. Social Security
i. National Minimum Social Security Benefit to include:
‐ Health Care– Mandatory lifelong comprehensive health care that includes
coverage for hospitalisation, accidents, diseases caused by occupational health hazards, maternity benefit and non domiciliary treatment.
‐ Old age Pension – Pension computed on a uniform principle that applies to
government employees. The pension must be linked to the statutory minimum monthly wage or the last drawn monthly wage whichever is higher and calculated as 50% of it.
‐ Regulation of social security through tripartite Welfare Boards that includes the representation of trade unions.
‐ Creation of National Social Security Fund through contributions from employers and through a national social security contribution to be made by all income tax payees.
ii. Provident Fund:
‐ All workers who are not covered by any PF scheme must be directly covered by the EPFO with no lower limit of number of employees.
‐ No exemption to PF should be granted to any class of employers including cooperatives.
‐ In all cases of contract employment continuing for a year or more, the principal employer should be mandated to maintain a sub account for Provident Fund of contract workers.
– PF contributions should not be invested in shares.
iii. ESI
‐ Extend ESI facilities to all workers, including rural workers
‐ Allow self-registration of workers where employer-employee relationship cannot be established with the employers contribution paid by the state government
‐ All doctors and hospitals to provide medical help to ESI covered workers
‐ Incremental integration of the ESI system with the Public health system
5. Contract Work
i. After completion of 240 days of continuous or aggregate employment contract workers in perennial employment be made tenured workers.
ii. The system of automatic licensing of contractors should be immediately stopped. Issuance of contracts should be based on information of market exigency, seasonality, technology etc. Clear guidelines should be specified for qualification of contractors. Contractors convicted for basic labour law violations, including non- payment of minimum wages, should be debarred from registration under the Act.
iii. Payment of all contract workers employed in any establishment be through bank transfer.
iv. Implement the 1983 Award of the Cement Wage Board that bars employment of contract workers in the cement industry except in loading and unloading.
6. Employment
i. Rural
‐ Immediately legislate an enactment to regulate working conditions of agricultural workers in consonance with the Kerala Agriculture Workers Act 1974.
‐ Increase the limit of NREGA to 150 days for every individual above the age of 18 in rural areas and to 200 days for SCs and STs.
‐ NREGA wage with 100% CPI neutralisation to be revised six monthly
ii. Urban
‐ Confirm all contract workers with more than 240 days of employment under a single principal employer by 1 June 2015.
‐ Legislation of National Urban Employment Guarantee Act which includes provision of a wage subsidy to enterprises registered under the S&E Act and the Factories Act that fall into the category of micro and small enterprises.
‐ Ensure access to housing, education and social security for workers including migrant workers.
iii. Government
‐ Confirm all contract workers with more than 240 days of employment under a single principal employer by 1 June 2015.
‐ Regularise all ‘honorarium workers’ like Anganwadi employed bodies by central, state and local government immediately
‐ Fix a wage cap of 1:12 on salary differential between the lowest paid and highest paid government employee.
7. Right to Food
i. National Food Security Act to be universal
ii. No dilution of Supreme Court Orders on Right to Food
iii. No to Genetically Modified crops and seeds, in the absence of adequate testing, and liberal patent regimes, especially in the case of pharmaceuticals, are detrimental to food and health security
iv. Public Distribution System
– Ensure universal access to PDS in both rural and urban areas with expansion of the distribution network, increases in quantities supplied in consonance with consumption needs and at prices in line with minimum wages.
– Expansion of PDS to include all essential commodities. Food grains should include millets, pulses, oil over and above basic cereals. Recent research also suggests that the size f individual PDS shops may be a constraint in delivering the NFSA. It therefore may be necessary to expand the PDS
– PDS to be linked to control of prices of cereals and other essential commodities.
– Portable Smart Cards for PDS to ensure access for migrant workers. Smart cards to take nuclear families as the unit for Household. A household may have a single member.
– Transparent, participatory, effective, efficient and justiciable delivery system.
– Minimum Support Price for food grain production to be so fixed such that it
provides an incentive for food production.
– No cash transfers for provisions under NFSA and PDS
v. ICDS, MDM
– Universalise ICDS for all children under 6 years and MDM in schools for children upto Std X for 12 months of the year.
– Provide pregnant and lactating women daily financial support equivalent to the daily minimum wage for a period of six months (three months before and after child birth);
– Anganwadi centres to be upgraded to crèches
– Identification and treatment for acute malnutrition to be included in ICDS
– Anganwadi workers and helpers, MDM workers to be regularised as government employees in respective departments in order to ensure their services in delivery of these government programmes.
vi. Special provision to vulnerable groups such as the elderly, disabled, destitute, etc.
vii. Special provision for natural and human-made disasters.
8. Right to Health
i. All workers to be brought under ILO Convention 155 on Occupational Safety and Health
ii. Right to Healthcare Act
‐ Legislate a Right to Healthcare Act that lay down the framework for provision of quality and free health care through the public healthcare system and regulation of the private sector. Providing entitlements must be accompanied by a clear framework for accountability and grievance redressal.
‐ Expand the public health care system, including comprehensive integration of the three levels of the public health systems, as well as the ESI and centres specialising in OHS, including creating of rural infrastructure (PHCs and sub- health centres).
‐ Define a clear, transparent and time-bound road map for strengthening and expanding the public health system while improving its functioning and accountability. This must include allocation of adequate, increased budgets.
‐ Raise budget allocation for health to 10 percent of GDP by 2015.
‐ Ensure all components of health systems are involved in an integrated response to the specific health needs of working populations.
‐ Regularise ASHAs, ANMs and all other contract health workers and increase the number of health workers per 10,000 population from 19 to 23 (WHO norm)
‐ Compulsory rural tenure for all doctors at every stage of their career to be linked to career progression.
iii. Rational Drug Policy and IPR
‐ Enact a National Rational Drug Policy that promotes generics and limits patents
‐ Strengthen the Indian Patent Act, 1970 and use the powers available under Section 100 of the Patent Act, to issue notifications calling for application by generic drug manufacturers for the grant of compulsory licenses by the Patent Controller on specific drugs and uphold the substance and rational of the clause 3 (d) of the Patents Act 1970 as a safeguard against evergreening, i.e. the extension of patent monopolies of known drugs and the consequent delay in the availability of affordable generic versions.
‐ Rejuvenate and strengthen the public sector in the pharmaceutical industry for large scale production of affordable generic medicines
‐ All essential drugs including its combinations and all dosage forms to be included under Drug Price Control Order (DPCO).
‐ Ensure strict vigilance and stringent measures against manufacture of spurious Drugs.
‐ Establish a national Ethical Monitoring Cell for monitoring clinical trials under the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR). Strict monitoring of Contract Research Organisations (CROs) to prevent illegal clinical trials.
iv. Occupational Health and Safety
‐ Put in place a single law on occupational safety, health and industrial and workplace hazards that covers all work and workers.
‐ The workplace should also serve as a setting for delivery of other essential public- health interventions, and for health promotion.
‐ ESI hospitals and clinics specialising in OHS should be set up in areas identified as hosting large numbers of vulnerable workers/industries.
‐ Add all occupational diseases, injuries and health hazards to Workmen’s Compensation Act if it is not listed in schedule 3.
‐ Higher compensation for death or permanent disability due to occupational health hazard. Special assistance to all those suffering from occupational diseases in service and post retirement.
‐ Appoint Commission to asses and award full compensation to affected people, decide penalty for the environment damage and cancellation of the licenses of all industries causing pollution.
9. Right to Education
i. Improve educational outcomes along with enrolment by ensuring education in mother tongue in primary schools
ii. Raise budget allocation for education to 10 per cent of GDP by 2019 to actualise the provisions under the Right to Education Act, 2009.
iii. Ensure enrolment of children of migrant workers in schools at the point of destination to ensure continuity of schooling
iv. Regularise all para-teachers under the SSA in the pay and grade as regular teachers based on their experience and qualification.
v. Improvement and access to Technical Training, especially for women, dalits, adivasis, religious minorities and other socially backward communities for skill development
vi. Implement recommendation of the Knowledge Commission for expansion of Public libraries across the country
10. Right over Natural Resources
i. Balanced land allocation policy to ensure sufficient land and water are dedicated to ensure sufficiency in food production.
ii. Appoint a National Commission on Land Acquisition to ensure livelihood security of the potentially displaced and a moratorium on land acquisition until livelihood security is addressed.
iii. Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation
– Ensure women’s right over community land and other natural resources
– Ensure protection of urban poor and Resettlement Act, 2013
– Ensure livelihood security and rehabilitation and fair compensation to landless dependents on land already acquired
iv. Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006
– Community governance over natural resources- Establish a democratic structure, with active participation of forest working people, in forest governance focussing on protection of livelihood and resources.
– Minor Forest Produce/ Non-timber Forest Produce (MFP/NTFP) – Amend co- operative laws to enable forest dwelling people to gather/collect, sell such products for enhancing their livelihood.
– Expedite implementation of Community Forest Rights
– Withdrawal of all cases on minor offences on all forest dwelling people
– Initiate social security schemes and set up schools, hospitals and roads
– Encourage traditional forestry as against commercial forestry.
v. Fisher people
• Independent central ministry for fisheries
• Enact a legislation on protection and regulation of fishworkers
– Monetary compensation for death while fishing during rough seas
– Recognition of community rights of traditional fishing communities
– Recognition, regulation and protection of fish vendors, mostly women
– Regulation of trawlers and corporate fishing entities
• Strict implementation of the ban on coastal sand mining as ordered by the National Green Tribunal.
• Revive the CRZ notification 1991 in spirit and principle. Strengthen the authorities for monitoring and taking action against the violations
• Stop coastal (Sea) reclamation
vi. Repeal the SEZ Act, 2005 and the proposal for setting up NMIZs
vii. Coastal Area Regulation
viii. Extend the PESA Act, 1996 to all scheduled areas.
ix. Climate Justice
– Ensure urgent cut in emissions by elites thus enforcing equality and equity in resource-sharing. Develop an effective framework that promotes the use of public transport alongside binding restrictions on the use of vehicles for private purposes, and one that prevents displacement of the poor in towns and cities.
– Redraw the energy strategy to move towards a more sustainable, equitable, employment and livelihood-generating renewable and bio-energy sources and strategies, in a time-bound manner.
– A strict principle of “polluter pays” should be implemented for costing and comparing various energy options. The government must cease to be party to any market-based solutions like carbon trading.
– Repeal the Electricity Act, 2003 and all its ramifications and replace it with legislation that ensures electricity for all and meets the needs of the economy.
– Nuclear energy, bio-fuels as energy solutions to be reviewed in a transparent and democratic manner.
– Support the payment for ecological debt for historical emissions and current adaptation and respect, protect and promote the sovereignty and rights of nations and people, with national boundaries and globally.
– The costs of mitigation and restructuring are paid for through direct investment by the government defined by the paramount principle of the public good.
– India should take the lead in building a consensus among developing economies to commit to mitigation targets, which should be binding through national legislation.
11. Right to Affordable Housing and Transport
i. Housing
‐ Ensure redevelopment of slums with basic amenities and decent housing, with security of tenure for all urban slum dwellers and ensure that all evictions, in both urban and rural areas, are justiciable.
‐ Regulation of private rent providers
‐ Allocate a fixed percentage of the budget to public / low cost housing in order to meet the severe housing deficit, especially in large cities. This should be mandated in all city and village development plans, and should include reservation of land and earmarked funds for housing for all low-income groups.
‐ Ensure provision and monitoring equal access to basic services such as water, sanitation and electricity.
‐ Ensure people’s participation in the development of all city, town and village plans, including housing /settlement plans, as well as national housing policies and policies related to basic services such as water and sanitation.
‐ Ensure Regulation of Real Estate Sector
‐ Special schemes should be implemented that prioritise reallocation of surplus, land to landless dalits and adivasis. Urgent measures to be taken to prevent atrocities and violence against dalits and adsivasis, including women, in their struggle to gain equal access to land, housing and basic services. These acts of violence against Dalits due to land disputes are punished under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act (1989).
‐ Introduce a higher rate of property tax @ 50% higher than the circle rate for all properties valued at above Rs 1 crore.
ii. Public Transport
‐ Ensure safe, secure, reliable, balanced, diverse and sustainable integrated transport system to provide better access and mobility.
‐ Ensure that public owned urban transport facilities are introduced in all towns with a population of over 2,50,000;
‐ Dedicated bus lanes are in place in all cities with population above 1 million;
‐ Public owned bus services reach every village and are frequent;
‐ Build the necessary infrastructure and facilities to extend the coverage of the transport system in the city
‐ Daily bus pass on both public and private bus services are affordable and are therefore maintained at not more than 10% of the lowest state minimum wage per day of a working person.
‐ No to contractualisation of work in public transport; Regularisation of all workers in public transport to ensure safety and security of passengers.
‐ Introduction of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) in urban centres to reduce construction time, travel time, and cost of travel.
‐ Integrate multiple modes of urban public transport with common tickets and passes.
‐ Strict regulation of private transport to include fares, safety and quality of service.
‐ Public participation in planning of transport system
‐ Railways
• Extension and improvement in frequency of railway connections to ensure better access
• Provision of hourly train service between metro cities and towns within 500 Kms.
• Provision of clean toilets and drinking water at bus stations and railway platforms
• The subsidy on railway fares up to the sleeper class to be offset by the fares of higher classes.
• Shift road freight to rail freight through an appropriate mechanism of incentives.
12. Gender
i. Recognition of women’s work
• Regularise all honorarium workers in government employments in recognition of their work.
• Decriminalise sex work and recognition and legal protection of their right to work
ii. Maternity benefits
• Extend provisions under the Maternity Benefit Act to all women workers
employed in establishments falling under the Factories Act and the Shop and Establishment Act and honorary workers employed in the delivery of government programmes.
• National Maternity Benefit Scheme/ Indira Gandhi Matritva Sahyog Yojana
‐ Extend the scheme to all pregnant women
‐ The cash transfer should be for 6 months of maternity leave and at the rate of the National floor level monthly minimum wage.
‐ Anganwadi on demand
‐ Remove restriction of the two-child norm or of the age of mother
‐ Remove restriction on non-institutional deliveries
iii. Immediate enactment of a national domestic workers legislation to ensure
• Fixation of minimum wages and working hours, including day of weekly rest and paid leave, maternity leave
• Compulsory registration of domestic workers with a Domestic Workers Welfare Board
• Regulation of private employment agencies by the tripartite Welfare Board
• Right to association and collective bargaining
• Protection against workplace harassment, including sexual harassment
iv. Immediate ratification of ILO convention 189 on Domestic Workers.
v. Protection of women from Sexual crimes
• Violence at Home and Public Spaces

‐ Stringent implementation of The Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PCPNDT) Act, 1994 to prevent female foeticide
‐ The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012

‐ The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005
‐ Amend the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act 2013 to include the Justice Verma Committee Recommendations on marital rape, AFSPA, as well as in the definition of rape or sexual assault as not being gender neutral by recognising that the perpetrators of sexual violence are male, while the
victims could be gender plural.
‐ Amendment of the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956
‐ Decriminalise adult consensual sex work
‐ Repeal Section 8 of the ITPA, 1956 to ensure protection of sex
workers under law

• Violence at Work
‐ Implement the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013
‐ Include Domestic workers and home-based workers in the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013
‐ Sexual Harassment Committee at all workplaces with more than 10 workers 13. Affirmative Action and Protection of Religious Minorities

vi. Decriminalise consensual sexual relations between persons of same sex through the repeal of Section 377 of the IPC
13. Affirmative Action and Protection of Religious Minorities
i. Mandatory affirmative action in private sector employment
ii. Immediately clear all backlogs in recruitment in the reserved category in all employments.
iii. Implement the recommendations of the Ranganath Mishra Report to include Christians and Muslims of Scheduled Caste origin for constitutional guarantees. The eligibility for membership of the Scheduled Castes should not be linked to religious status.
iv. Implement the recommendations of the Sachar Committee report to improve access to education, to increase employment share and participation in public bodies of Muslims.
v. Immediately legislate the Women’s Reservation Bill
vi. Expansion of employment opportunities for women, dalits and adivasis in regular government employment.
vii. Repeal Freedom of Religion Act in the states where it exists that restricts freedom to choose religion.
viii. Legislate a Targeted Violence [Prevention, Control and Reparations] Bill immediately
14. Right to Justice
i. Reform of the criminal and civil justice system to ensure time bound completion of cases, accountability and transparency.
ii. Abolish Death Penalty
iii. Legislate a national law along the line of the Maharashtra Prevention and Eradication of Human Sacrifice and other Inhuman, Evil and Aghori Practices and Black Magic Act, 2013
15. Protection of Democratic Rights and Right to Democratic Dissent
i. Repeal the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, 1958
ii. Repeal all sedition laws including Section 124(A) of the IPC, 1860
iii. Repeal the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment Act, 2008
iv. Resolve all existing false cases within 90 days of formation of government
16. Regeneration of Public Sector
i. No disinvestment of the public sector
ii. Reinvest in the Public Sector to reform and regenerate it so as to direct privateinvestment in order to ensure economic equalities, social justice and environmental sustainability is maintained.
17. Cooperatives and Retail
i. Ensure legislatively to provide for funds both from the exchequer and from public sector banks and insurance companies for the cooperative sector.
ii. Introduce a national policy for the development of integrated credit and consumer cooperatives.
iii. Restrict all multi-brand retail to cooperative ownership
18. Private Sector
i. Compulsory audit by the CAG in all PPPs
ii. To prevent evergreening of loans, introduce compulsory independent audit from an RBI appointed panel of auditors of companies under the Corporate Debt
Restructuring scheme.
iii. Make mandatory for Companies to disclose separately the (i) the distribution of their employee costs between workers and non-workers and (ii) payment to contractors engaged under the provisions of the Contract Labour (Abolition and Regulation) Act.
iv. Create a public fund for distribution of the 2% Corporate Social Respnsibility expenditure under the Companies Act 2013
v. Takeover of abandoned and closed Tea Plantations by the Tea Board as per the Tea Act and payment of all dues to workers by the Tea Board in all cases of abandonment by the owner. Subsequent handing over of the plantation to workers’ cooperatives, if there are any.
vi. Expansion of the coverage of the RTI Act to be extended to include all companies registered companies under the Companies Act that (i) are in default of a loan from a public sector bank or (ii) contributes more than 1% of its annual sales in the form of royalty or any other transfer to a parent or holding company registered in India or abroad or (iii) is a concessionaire or a recipient of a concession under law or (iv) is a public utility, or (v) is covered under the provisions of the Essential Services Maintenance Act, or (vi) has a Gross Capital Employed of over Rs. 100 crores or a annual sale of Rs. 3000 crores, or having more than 10% of capital employed contributed public sector undertakings (vii) is a banking company (vii) is in the business of running a hospital, diagnostic centre, undertaking clinical trials or providing any other medical facility.
vii. Expansion and mandatory implementation of The Building and Other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1996 in all states.
19. Macroeconomic Reform
i. Industrial Policy:
To put in place an industrial policy that fosters expansion of the manufacturing industry that satisfies three important goals:
• To ensure the expansion of autonomous technological development, where we have developed technology at global standards, in order to scale up the benefits, ensure technological absorption, make this technology available to public sector enterprises.
• To that industrial exports can meet the country’s import costs.
• To ensure that the central public sector enterprises together with state government owned public enterprises provide the instruments to ensure that effective industrial policy is an important element of an equitable and just growth strategy and for this purpose legislatively provide for funds both from the exchequer and from public sector banks and insurance companies in order to insulate and shelter indigenous industrial development from the vagaries of the market.
ii. Monetary Policy
• Reject the recommendations of the Urjit Patel Committee on interest rate policy to be set by inflation targeting and CPI indexation.
• Tighten money and capital market regulation
• Regulate the insurance providing for costless withdrawal of small investors.
• Protection of small savings – place floor of Rs. 50,000 on investment in mutual funds and abolish the Rajiv Gandhi Share Investment Scheme.
• Incentivise protected small savings through PFI instruments.
• RBI’s mandate must include both growth and inflation control.
iii. Fiscal Policy
• Fiscal Devolution
• Progressive taxation – freeze the current floor of payment of Income tax,
introduce a tax rate on incomes of above Rs. 10 lakhs to 40% and above Rs. 20 lakhs to 50%.
• Introduce income tax on agricultural incomes based on a 5 year average income span.
• Introduce progressive taxation on luxury consumption.
• Introduce an inheritance tax for all inheritance above Rs. 1 crore.
• Removal of taxes (including octroi) on non-processed food and sales taxes on essential commodities and generic medicines.
• Include repeated royalty payments – paid to a holding or related party - beyond 5 years as a component of profit.
• Bring down the ratio of direct to indirect taxes to 1:1 by 2019.
20. Trade Policy
i. An activist trade policy that is integrated with industrial policy and protects food security
ii. Parliamentary accountability of trade negotiations and consultation with state governments.
iii. Stop TRIPS plus provisions in bilateral FTAs
21. Foreign Policy
i. Secure Global peace by
‐ Building on equality of nations and respect for human dignity within countries that eliminates all forms of racism, xenophobia, religious and social prejudices and demonisation of Muslims and other peoples
‐ Global disarmament and denuclearisation
‐ Securing and sustaining independence, sovereignty and right of development of nations
‐ Demilitarisation of the society by abrogating all laws that enables military to intervene in domestic social and political conflict
‐ All states signing and ratifying the Rome Treaty of the International Criminal Court.
‐ Supporting liberation movements and struggles of nations against aggression by the US and its allies and by other expansionist powers.
‐ Working for a genuine and just settlement of the Palestinian peoples’ right to self determination and securing the early, complete and permanent withdrawal of US forces from Iraq and Afghanistan and withdraw the sanctions against Iran.
‐ Initiating diplomatic and economic sanctions against military regimes
‐ Abrogating of Indo-US nuclear treaty
‐ Democratise the UN system.
ii. Build a South Asia on the basis of:
– Democracy, Secularism and Social equality by eliminating all forms of discrimination
– Peaceful political settlement of aspirations of peoples’ for right to self determination
– Regional framework for peaceful and equitable development of peoples and nations of this region with resolution of bilateral issues, including border disputes and where needed renegotiation of bilateral treaties, on the basis of equality and mutual interest
– Reduce and chanellise defence spending for social development and demilitarise the region including nuclear disarmament.
– Scrap all strategic military agreements with US and Israel towards eliminating US hegemony
iii. Ensure Rights of Migrant Workers: Ensure people have the right to work anywhere in the country without obstruction. Assure migrant workers the security of movement and right to livelihood, facilitate easy visa and naturalisation and penalise human trafficking. In particular, provide mechanism for work permits for South Asian countries and protect fishing rights of the fisher communities in South Asia in the territorial waters of the South Asian region.
iv. Issuance of short stay tourist visa on arrival to all citizens of member SAARC countries without any restrictions and police reporting.
22. Democracy
i. Government
‐ Bring all public servants, elected representatives, office holders having constitutional cover as well as members of the judiciary under the ambit of anti-corruption legislation which includes punitive measures.
‐ Right to public services and public provisions that is time bound and justiciable
ii. Political Parties
– Bring political parties registered under the Representation of the People Act under RTI.
iii. Media
– Strengthen public broadcasting by ensuring 100% fiscal support for All India Radio and Doordarshan.
– Empower the Press Complaints Commission with statutory powers including for punitive action
Draft for comments
2 April 2014
Go back to: Indian Elections: Workers Charter for the 16th Lok Sabha Election – I – Framework
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