ESI cards for 7.5 lakh

The Employees' State Insurance Corporation has decided to issue new ESI hospital cards to nearly 7.5 lakh insured persons in West Bengal.

The total expenditure incurred in the process would be close to Rs 1.75 crore, informed B K Sahu, additional commissioner and regional director, ESIC, West Bengal region.

The new cards will carry the photograph of the entire family of the card holder, along with a bar code in a laminated cover.

While Sahu did not spell out any definite time frame for the task, he said till now the corporation had already issued nearly 47,000 new cards in the state.

In order to match the quality standards of the ESI hospitals to private ones, the corporation had taken steps like de-centralising the procedures for admitting patients, maintaining minimum records and starting patient grievance cell at the ESIC head office.

The cell will monitor the grievances redressal machinery across 22 ESIC regional offices in the state.

Also, the submission of the return of contribution in Form-6 has been de-centralised by the corporation.

In effect, the forms can be submitted to the branch offices near the factory or establishment.

Also, the branch offices are now empowered with preparing "Live Lists" enabling the insured persons for speedy drawl of the benefits.