ESIC To Have 28,116 Beds, 241 Hospitals In Coming Days, Says Bhupender Yadav

Union minister Bhupender Yadav on Friday said the number of beds and hospitals of Employees' State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) will be increased to 28,116 and 241, respectively, in the coming days. Yadav was addressing a function to mark 71 foundation days of ESIC here. The minister informed that there were 18,933 beds and 151 hospitals of ESIC in 2014."Prime Minister Narendra Modi started ESIC 2.0 and in a span of eight years, the number of ESIC beds and hospitals increased to 20,211 and 160 respectively. In the coming days, the beds would be increased to 28,116 and the hospital number will be 241."

The minister also referred to the government's commitment to provide social security to unorganised workers in the country saying almost 29 crore informal workers are registered on the eSharm portal. He was of the view that this national database will be an aid to provide various social security benefits to informal sector workers in the country. Labour ministry stated in a statement that the eShram portal was launched on 26th August 2021 by the Ministry of Labour & Employment to create a national database of unorganised/migrant workers and to provide each of them with a Universal Account Number (UAN).

The portal has received an unprecedented response from the unorganised/migrant workers of the country and as on 24th February 2023, over 28.60 crore workers have registered on the eShram portal. One of the objectives of the eShram portal is to extend the benefits of social security and welfare schemes to unorganised workers especially migrant workers and to identify workers who are deprived of the various benefits of the welfare schemes of the central and/or state government due to lack of awareness or otherwise.

With this objective, the Ministry of Labour & Employment initiated the matching of the eShram beneficiaries' data with the ration card (National Food Security Act (NFSA)) data available with the Department of Food and Public Distribution(DFPD). The complete data set of ration cards were made available by the DFPD to the Ministry of Labour & Employment. On matching of the two data sets, it has been observed that out of a total of 28.60 crore eShram registrants, about 20.63 crores are registered in the NFSA database of DFPD and about 7.96 core are yet to get registered on NFSA data, it stated.

Ministry of Labour and Employment is conveying the details of all eShram registered unorganised/migrant workers who are not yet registered on NFSA to DFPD so that they may also be included under the database of DFPD as per their eligibility. This initiative will ensure that ration card benefits under NFSA are made available to all eligible workers registered on eShram, it stated. The eShram portal is already integrated with National Career Service (NCS) portal and more than 10 lahks eShram registrants have registered on NCS to get benefits of domestic as well as international jobs available on the NCS portal.

Further, the eShram portal is also integrated with the PMSYM portal to facilitate eShram registrants getting the benefit of the pension scheme of the Ministry of Labour & Employment. The labour ministry is constantly making efforts to work towards the welfare of the entire workforce under both organised and unorganised sectors, it stated.