Social Protection for Informal Workers in India: Insecurities,Instruments and Institutional Mechanisms

In this article we present a broad definition of social protection to include basic securities, such as income, food, health and shelter, and economic securities including income–generating productive work. A conceptual framework is developed with which to analyse the causes of insecurities of informal workers, identify the core needs of social protection, develop instruments and visualize the institutional mechanisms to address these needs. Further, we present the macro and micro evidence of these insecurities and discuss the institutional mechanisms for delivering social protection for the workers.