NEW DELHI: The Employees’ State Insurance Scheme, a social security programme for workers, will be extended to every part of India by the end of 2022, the Employees’ State Insurance Corporation decided at its meeting on Sunday. At present, ESI is implemented fully in 443 districts and partially in 153 districts. A total of 148 districts are not covered under the scheme.
Led by Union labour and employment minister Bhupender Yadav, the ESIC also decided to set up 23 new 100 bedded hospitals across the country, including six in Maharashtra, four in Haryana, two each in Tamil Nadu, UP, and Karnataka and one ESI hospital each in Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and West Bengal.
Aiming to fulfil the growing need for skilled manpower in healthcare sectors and narrow the existing gap between the demand and supply of skilled manpower, ESIC said it will start certificate courses in 10 disciplines in three of its medical colleges at Faridabad, Sanathnagar in Hyderabad and K K Nagar in Chennai for healthcare link workers, as a pilot project.
ESIC will also augment its infrastructure by setting-up new hospitals and upgrading existing ones. Till the new hospitals are set up, ESIC said insured workers and their family members can avail cashless medical care services through Ayushman Bharat PMJAY empanelled hospitals. Yadav also said ESIC has undertaken to fill 6,400 vacancies for different posts in the last eight months. ESIC also decided to start radiation oncology and nuclear medicine departments at three ESIC medical college at Sanathnagar, Faridabad and Chennai.
