The Ministry of labour and Employment, Telangana, along with the Government is taking steps for the well-being of the State’s workforce by providing social security and skill development to youth
Bandaru Dattatreya, Minister of State (IC) for labour and Employment and Government of India inaugurated an exhibition cum awareness programme on the initiatives of Ministry of labour and Employment at Hyderabad, Telangana. A health check-up camp was also organised by the employees’ State insurance corporation during this event.
During the inauguration of the programme, Dattatreya said that Union labour and Employment Ministry is committed to provide the best possible services to India’s largest workforce so that they are healthy and productive, and are able to give their best for the development of our national economy. He informed the media about various efforts put up by ministry to herald an era of doing business with ease, amending and modifying the archaic labour laws, increasing job opportunities, providing social security cover to the workers and skill development of the youth.
He also appreciated the ESIC and EPFO for launching of e-governance project to bring efficiency, transparency and accountability in its various operations. While addressing the gathering, AK Agarwal, director general, ESIC said that ESIC has taken many new steps for giving better cash benefits and medical services to the stakeholders of ESIC. He informed that ESIC has initiated the payment of ESIC contributions through payment gateway of State Bank of India (SBI) and 58 other banks. He also said that for empowering the States and to strengthen the review and monitoring mechanism of the medical care delivery system, a State executive committee has been constituted in every State. It will have delegated powers to improve the medical infrastructure at primary level for executing special repair works. The committee will also monitor the functioning of Insurance Medical Practitioners (IMPs), and will have a periodic review of the reports of the local committees and may carry out independent inspections of ESI medical facilities. The ceiling on medical expenditure to be reimbursed to the States has been raised from Rs1,500 per year to Rs2,000 per insured person per year from 2014-15.
The ceiling was be further increased by Rs150 per insured person per year for the next five years starting from April, 2015. The ESI Corporation has also decided to enhance the exemption limit from payment of employees’ contribution for employees drawing wages upto Rs137 per day from existing Rs100. For achieving the objective of simplifying business regulations in labour inspection, the new inspection scheme of ESIC has been integrated with Shram Suvidha portal of the Ministry of labour and Employment. SR Chauhan, medical commissioner and U Venkeswarlu, financial commissioner from ESIC were also present at the event.