 bill no 65 of 2014 the agricultural workers welfare bill, 2014 by shri at nana patil, mp a billto provide for the welfare of agricultural workers and for matters connected therewith be it enacted by parliament in the sixty-fifth year of the republic of india as follows:—1  (1) this act may be called the  agricultural workers welfare act, 2014short title and extent(2) it extends to the whole of india2 in this act, unless the context otherwise requires,—definitions(i) farming, including the cultivation and tillage of soil; (ii) dairy farming; (iii) pisciculture;(iv) production, cultivation, growing and harvesting of any horticulture, floriculture commodity;(v) raising of livestock, bee-keeping or poultry;5(vi) any practice performed on a farm as incidental to, or in conjunction with, the farm operations (including any forestry or timbering operations and the preparation for market and delivery to storage or to market or to carriage for transportation of farm products); and(vii) growing fodder or thatching grass or for grazing cattle;10(b) "appropriate government" means in the case of a state, the state government, and in all other cases, the central government; and(c) "prescribed" means prescribed by rules made under this act3 (1) as soon as may be, but not later than one year from the commencement of this act, the central government shall, in consultation with the state governments, formulate a scheme for the welfare of agricultural workersformulation of a scheme for the welfare of agricultural workers15(2) without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing provision, the scheme shall provide for the agricultural workers,—(i) a comprehensive insurance scheme; (ii) old age pension; (iii) free health care facilities; and20(iv) payment of compensation in cases of accident during agricultural operationsimplementation of the scheme4 the appropriate government shall take steps to implement the schemes formulated under section 3 in such manner and within such time as may be prescribed255 (1) the central government shall constitute a fund to be known as the agricultural workers welfare fund to which the central government and the state governments shall contribute in such ratio as may be prescribedconstitution of agricultural workers welfare fund(2)  the fund constituted under sub-section (1) shall be utilized to give effect to the provisions of this actpower to make rules6 (1) the central government may, by notification in the official gazette, make rules for carrying out the purposes of this act3035(2) every rule made under this section shall be laid, as soon as may be after it is made, before each house of parliament, while it is in session, for a total period of thirty days which may be comprised in one session or in two or more successive sessions, and if, before the expiry of the session immediately following the session or the successive sessions aforesaid, both houses agree in making any modification in the rule or both the houses agree that the rule should not be made, the rule shall thereafter have effect only in such modified form or be of no effect, as the case may be; so, however, that any such modification or annulment shall be without prejudice to the validity of anything previously done under that rule statement of objects and reasonsthe economy of our country depends, to a considerable extent, upon agriculturemore than sixty-five per cent of the population in the country is directly or indirectly engaged in agriculture lakhs of workers are involved in agricultural operations but their role as key contributors in the national economy has never been given due importance they live in miserable conditions they are not even paid the minimum wages which they are entitled to get they do not have any access to health care, pension and other such benefitsthe miserable living conditions of the agricultural workers largely go unnoticed as they are in unorganized sector and they do not have any forum to vent their grievances they have been a neglected lottherefore, it is proposed in the bill to formulate a scheme for the welfare of agricultural workersnew delhi;at nana patiljune 27, 2014 financial memorandumclause 3 of the bill provides for formulation of a scheme for the welfare of agricultural workers clause 4 provides for implementation of the scheme for the welfare of agricultural workers clause 5 provides for constitution of an agricultural workers welfare fund the bill, therefore, if enacted, would involve expenditure from the consolidated fund of india it is estimated that a recurring expenditure of about rupees ten thousand crore per annum will be involveda non-recurring expenditure of about rupees five hundred crore is also likely to be involved memorandum regarding delegated legislationclause 6 of the bill empowers the central government to make rules for carrying out the purposes of the bill as the rules will relate to matters of detail only, the delegation of legislative power is of a normal character———— a billto provide for the welfare of agricultural workers and for matters connected therewith————(shri at nana patil, mp)gmgipmrnd—991ls (s3)—23-07-2014