By NNN-PTI,
New Delhi : In the wake of global economic slowdown, the Central government has raised the unemployment benefit cover provided to the Employees State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) beneficiaries from an existing six months to one year.
The ESIC board also made announcements to increase the budgeted allocation for unemployment allowance under the Rajiv Gandhi Shramik Kalyan Yojana (RJSKY) to a whooping Rs 10 crore this year.(One Crore: ten million)
According to this decision, the 4.4 crore ESIC beneficiaries will receive 50 per cent of their salary for a period of one year instead of six months. Medical benefits would also be provided to the them and their immediate family members during the period.
In another major benefit to be provided under the scheme is the provision of giving skill upgradation training to any worker for a period of six months at any ITIs and national training institutes.
“With good financial earning last year the government had decided to enhance benefits to insured persons under the ESIC. This includes enhancing the cushion period for unemployment allowance as a large number of retrenchment is taking place,” said an official spokesperson of ESIC ON Friday.
In four years after the RJSKY was launched by the Congress-led UPA government, the scheme had so far received a lukewarm response.
Last year just about Rs 3.17 lakh were disbursed under the scheme as unemployment allowance to retrenched beneficiaries while around 2200 cases were admitted for disbursing benefits during its four-year tenure.