Labour ministry issues guidelines for Atma Nirbhar Bharat Rozgar Yojana

The labour ministry has issued guidelines for the Atma Nirbhar Bharat Rozgar Yojana, clarifying the government will only contribute to new employees earning up to Rs 15,000 a month as defined under the Employees Provident Fund & Miscellaneous Provisions Act . The scheme was announced in November to incentivise formal job creation in the country and subsequently approved by the Cabinet in early December.The scheme will cost the government Rs 22,810 crore and the registration for the scheme will be effective from October 1, 2020 to June 30,2021 and is expected to create 5.5 million jobs. Under the scheme, the government will reimburse 24%, 12% each for employees and employers, for two years for all new formal jobs created in enterprises having up to 1000 employees between October 1 and till June 30 next year. Even workers who had lost jobs during the pandemic period between March 1, 2020 and September 30 and later got employed under EPFO registered establishment after October 1, 2020 will be eligible for benefits under the scheme subject to the wage ceiling. However, with enterprises having more than 1000 workers, the reimbursement will be restricted to 12% of the employees contribution.As per government estimates, the number of organised workers in India stands at 10 crore compared to six crore since the BJP government came to power. Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman has in November announced the Atma Nirbhar Package 3.0 containing a dozen measures to lift the economy hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic, including the scheme to generate employment. Under the scheme, for an establishment with 50 employees, a precondition for the benefit is adding a minimum of two two jobs and for those with more than 50 employees, a minimum of five jobs need to be added. Calculation of employee strength will be based on data as of September 2020. A similar scheme Pradhan Mantri Rojgar Prohatsan Yojana, launched in 2016 and valid till 2019, had created 1.21 crore formal jobs. However, under this the government was reimbursing just 12% of the employers share only.

from Economic Times https://ift.tt/3o75BV5