The Code on Social Security (the Code), passed with a view to repeal and consolidate existing labor laws and facilitate ease of doing business, has introduced several changes in the Employees’ State Insurance (ESI) Scheme. This article brings forth the features pertaining to the ESI Scheme under the said Code, which proves crucial for both the employee(s) as well as the employer(s). A snippet of these features are as follows:
• Registration: Voluntary registration has now been allowed under the Code, provided that the employers) and majority of their employees agree for the same.
• Scope: The Government is now empowered to extend SI scheme to any hazardous occupation, irrespective of the employee quantity involved. The Code also enables the framing of schemes by the ESI Corporation, for unorganized workers, gig workers and platform workers and the members of their families, for providing benefits available under ESI Scheme.
• Applicability: Every employee in an establishment shall be insured. in such manner, whether electronically or otherwise, as may be prescribed by the Central Government. An employee whether insured or insurable in respect of whom contributions are or were payable and who is by reason thereof, entitled to any of the benefits provided under the ESI Scheme, shall be called as an “Insured Person’.
• ESI Contribution deduction: The contribution payable under ESI Scheme in respect of an employee shall comprise contribution payable by the employer and contribution payable by the employee and shall be paid to the Corporation. The employer shall be liable to pay in respect of every employee, whether directly employed by him or by or through a contractor, the employee’s contribution. The expenses incurred in remitting the contributions to the Corporation, shall be borne by the employer. Neither the employer nor the contractor is permitted to deduct the employer’s contribution from any wages payable to an employee or otherwise to recover it from him.
• Default in payment of ESI Contribution: Even if an employer fails to pay ESI contribution(s) within a specified period of time, still the benefits of ESI shall be provided as and when required to the employee, which ESI Corporation can recover later from the employer to the extent of the capitalized value of the benefit paid to the employee. Such capitalized value may be inclusive of the payment of contribution amount, interest and damages payable by the employer.
• Additional Benefits: The ESI Corporation may, in addition to the benefits provided in the Code, promote measures for the improvement of the health and welfare of Insured Persons and for the rehabilitation and reemployment of Insured Persons who have been disabled or injured and may incur in respect of such measures, expenditure from the Employees’ State Insurance Fund within such limits as may be prescribed by the Central Government.
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