A meeting of the Employees State Insurance Corporation governing body, scheduled to meet in Gurugram on Friday and Saturday will take a decision on extending the Covid Relief Scheme of the ESIC. Under the scheme 90 per cent of the average daily wages of the deceased insured person is distributed amongst the eligible dependants.
To avail the benefit of the scheme, the deceased worker must have been in employment on the date of diagnosis of the Covid-19 and contribution for at least 35 days should have been paid during a period of maximum one year.
Financial assistance
Till January 18, around 6,006 claims have been received by the ESIC out of which 4,750 claims have been approved and ₹28.44 crore has been disbursed to 11,253 beneficiaries under the scheme till date, the governing body has been informed by the ESIC. “In order to provide financial assistance to the dependants of the IPs who may unfortunately lose their life due to Covid-19, it is proposed that the ESI Covid Relief Scheme with revised eligibility conditions may be extended for another year i.e. up to March 23, 2023,” the agenda of the meeting said.
The meeting will also discuss the Revised Estimates of the ESIC for 2021-2022 and Budget Estimates for 2022-2023. The performance budget for 2022-2023 of ESIC and renewal of service agreement between ESIC and UTI-ITSL as a bill processing agency (BPA) for one year, investment of ESI fund through Portfolio Managers UTI Asset Management Ltd. and SBI Funds Management Private Ltd for next six months from April 1, 2022 to September 30, 2022 will also be taken up during the meeting.
Prudent exit policy
Meanwhile, a meeting of the Finance Investment and Audit Committee (FIAC) of the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) decided to make a “prudent exit policy”. “There are several complaints after the EPFO invested the workers’ money in bonds which had collapsed creating a loss. We discussed the necessity for a prudent exit policy so that the money deposited could be withdrawn if a fund’s rating comes down. The exit policy will be finalised when the EPFO Board of Trustees will meet in Assam in the first week of March,” a member in the FIAC told BusinessLine.