Acche Din for those earning upto Rs. 21000 per month

The Employees’ State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) has taken one more step toward acche din for those who are earning Rs. 21000 per month alongwith improved medical facilities including telemedicine services.

In a recent meeting held, the ESIC board has decided to raise the monthly wages threshold to Rs 21,000, from the current Rs 15,000, for coverage under its health insurance scheme.

The board also decided to give an option to existing insured persons to continue membership even if their monthly wages exceeds the ceiling of Rs 21,000 per month.

Presently, all those insured under the ESIC scheme lose their membership of ESIC as well as that of the insurance cover if their basic wage overshoots the ceiling. Both the decisions will be implemented from October 1. Raising the threshold will help bring in an additional 50 lakh members to ESIC.

Presently, ESIC has 2.6 crore insured persons, which covers over 10 crore people, assuming four members of a family.

ESIC has launched the first phase of telemedicine services whereby ESIC Model Hospital, Basaidarapur, New Delhi, got connected with three ESI dispensaries at Rudrapur (Uttrakhand), Unnao (Uttar Pradesh) and Kathiyar (Bihar).

ESIC have been providing health care and other social security benefits to workers of a specified wage group for the last 65 years as a labour welfare measure such as OPD, drugs, specialist consultation, treatment and hospitalisation. Super-speciality medical facilities are also available..

ESIC has also launched a pilot project of telemedicine services at 11 ESI locations in co-ordination with Health Informatics and Electronics Division (HIED), C-DAC, Mohali, under the Digital India programme.

The Author CA Vipul Baranwal can be reached at mail@baranwal.in and 9811005995