On Good Governance Day, Labour Ministry aims at paperless service

The service will be provided to 40.22 million employee provident fund subscribers and the beneficiaries of the insurance services

The Union ministry of Labour and Employment marked the 'good governance day' by announcing paperless service to its 40.22 million employee provident fund (EPF) subscribers and the beneficiaries of the insurance services.

As part of the latest information technology-intensive service offerings, the ministry's organisations, the Employees State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) and the EPFO, were adopting e-governance to service the beneficiaries, besides ensuring the last mile connectivity.

Beneficiaries (employees) and the employers can access details of provident fund contribution, benefits, entitlements and the mandatory filing of returns every six months, all online.

“The insured person need not come to the ESIC headquarters for the money. We are also making the employer to generate a code for himself so that he can register his insured persons directly. Moreover, when it comes to returns, he (the employer) can now do them online instead of the compulsory manual submission every six months at the EPFO office,” said SR Chouhan, medical commissioner of ESIC, today here.

In order to ensure proper medical care services, the corporation has empowered state principal secretaries with adequate financial and administrative powers to take decisions, where they can disburse amounts worth Rs 3-5 crore for the repair and maintenance of hospitals, and Rs 50 lakh for setting up dispensaries.    

Speaking in a roundtable discussion on good governance here, Union minister of state for labour and employment Bandaru Dattatraya today said the ministry had taken up a special drive for enrolling contract and construction workers as part of measures to bring them under social security cover.

He said banks had so far registered 94 million accounts under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana — more than the set target of 70 million by January 26, 2015.