Employee insurance scheme not successful: Labour minister

GUWAHATI: At a one-day seminar on Employees' State Insurance Scheme (ESIC), state minister for labour and employment, Prithivi Majhi said the scheme has not very successful in the state as not many people are aware of it. The seminar was held in collaboration with Indian Chamber of Commerce (ICC) on Friday.
Addressing the meeting, the minister said, "We need to create more awareness among people about the scheme as every employee in both the organized and unorganized sector is entitled to benefit from the scheme, which includes full medical care for the workers and their dependants."
He added that the insured persons are also entitled to a variety of cash benefits at times of illness and for permanent or temporary disability, resulting in loss of earning capacity.The scheme also provides benefits to insured women and to the families of those employees who die in an industrial accident, he informed.
However, the scheme is still not available in places like Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Meghalaya and the scheme also doesn't cover the workers of various tea gardens of the state, Majhi said. "The tea gardens do not have proper health care facilities and the workers are not aware of health insurance schemes. We would be happy to bring the tea garden workers under this scheme," he said.
A special hospital was also supposed to be constructed for employees under ESIC, but the government has been unable to provide any land till now. "We require around 10 bighas of land for the hospital and we have not been able to get it yet, but we are trying to get the land and as soon as we do so, the work will start," Majhi added.
Ganesh Kalita, commissioner of labour, who was also present in the meeting, said, "A vast segment of workers are working in the unorganized sector on contractual basis; health care facility and schemes should also be made available to them."