Atal Bimit Vyakti Kalyan Yojana to benefit 20 lakh workers annually | Santosh Kumar Gangwar

Minister of State for Labour and Employment (Independent Charge), Mr. Santosh Kumar Gangwar, announced that the government has given the green signal to the ESIC?s ‘Atal Bimit Vyakti Kalyan Yojana’, under which cash relief would be credited to the bank accounts of workers who lose their jobs.

Inaugurating FICCI’s 7^th National Conference on ‘Excellence in Workplace Safety & Occupational Health’ and FICCI Safety Systems Excellence Awards for Industry, Mr. Gangwar said that the new scheme would be applicable to 3.2 crore ESIC-insured workers and entail a benefit of 25% of the average of 90 days earnings of a worker. It is estimated that 20 lakh workers would benefit from the scheme annually at a cost of Rs 1600 crore to the exchequer.

Mr. Gangwar said that the government was committed to simplifying labour laws to provide social security to the workers and facilitate rapid economic growth. Towards this end, the labour Ministry is currently engaged in amalgamating the 38 archaic labour laws into four codes, namely, Code on Wages, Code on Social security, Industrial Relations Code and Code on Occupational Safety & Health.

The Minister also released a Safety Handbook and presented the Safety Excellence Awards to manufacturing companies.Mr. Heeralal Samariya, Secretary, Labour & Employment, said that industry’s sustainability and survival was critically linked to management’s commitment to make the workers fully conversant with the working of the company. Managements of companies, he added, must provide a minimum wage to the workers, ensure safety of jobs and provide social security.

Mr. Shyam Bang, Chairman, FICCI Taskforce on Manufacturing Excellence and Chairman, NABCB,said that safety was an important aspect of industry’s success and appealed to top managements to give it the priority it deserved. Besides, large industries should extend a helping hand to their ancillaries and vendors who may not have adequate resources and expertise in improving their safety performance.

Mr. Satendra Singh, Co-Chair, FICCI Taskforce on Manufacturing Excellence, said that provision of a safe working environment required a change in mindset of both the workers and  promoters  and it was important that the systems were not just corrective but preventive. He said FICCI had taken workplace safety as a mission and was striving to ensure that the best practices were shared to improve the lives of the workers in both the formal and informal sectors.