Smart cards for unorganised workers

Initiatives to enhance skills being planned: Dattatreya

Union Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya

The Union Ministry for Labour and Employment will launch a national drive to distribute universal smart cards for workers in the unorganised sector, Union Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya has said.

Mr. Dattatreya told reporters here on Tuesday that skill development initiatives for such workers had been envisaged as about 93 per cent of them were unskilled. To start with, Rs.35 would be paid an hour to workers for onsite training.

Model centres

The population of the skilled workforce in the country, which is 2.08 lakh at present, would be raised to one crore, as in Japan.

For imparting skills to the workers, model centres would be set up across the country.

It had been decided to equip all industrial training institutes and a national university for vocational training would also be set up.

The Centre would launch an awareness drive involving State governments for distributing the smart cards. The card would link the workers with various social welfare schemes. Migrant labourers in the States too would benefit, he said.

The Minister said the Ministry had decided to relinquish the responsibility of running the ESI medical colleges as medical education was not its core area. State governments had been requested to take over the management of the medical colleges.

The Union government annually needed around Rs.80 crore to run a college and this could be used for providing super-specialty medical care to ESI members and beneficiaries.

Regarding the ESI medical college in Kollam, he said the government had already spent Rs.321.50 crore and Rs.218.50 crore more was needed.

The State government had been asked to take over the college, he said.

“More powers have been delegated to the ESI State executive committee. The committee can spend up to Rs.5 crore for running hospitals with 200 beds, Rs.3 crore for those having less than 200 beds, and Rs.50 lakh for dispensaries every year. At present, there are 1.75 crore insured people. The Centre’s contribution to the State government has been raised from Rs.1,500 to Rs. 2,000 per beneficiary,” he said.