Page 6 - Demo

| BIG STORY |
AUGUST 21, 2020 | The Indian Eye
6
healing tOuch
the Modi government decides to offer 50% of salary for three months as unemployment allowance to millions of workers who have lost their jobs due to the pandemic. as india stares at a jobless epidemic, the move will provide some relief and hope to millions
Our Bureau
NI e w D e l h i
n a game-changing decision on Thursday, the govern- ment of India eased norms
to offer 50% of salary for three months as unemployment al- lowance to millions of workers who are members of the Em- ployees State Insurance Corpo- ration and lost their jobs due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The move comes as a major relief for industrial workers, who have lost jobs or are on the verge of losing jobs due to the impact of the pandemic and the lockdown, which had stalled economic ac- tivity. There have been demands from several sections to provide wage relief to workers hit hard by the pandemic. In fact, at least two months ago, the finance ministry and Niti Aayog had de- manded that the rules be eased.
The employees will be eli- gible to claim the allowance for three months (90 days) during the period from start of lock- down on March 24 to December 31. They should have been part of the ESI scheme for two years during the period from April 1, 2018, to March 31, 2020, and should have contributed at least for 78 days during the period from October 1, 2019, to March 31, 2020 and also in one of the other three six monthly contribu- tion periods from April 1, 2018.
V Radhakrishnan, member of the ESIC board and national executive member of Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, said the move will benefit around 30-35 lakh (3.5 million) workers and provide relief to those who have lost jobs.
Under the scheme, relief to
millions of workers have lost their jobs since march
the extent of 25% of the average per day earning during the pre- vious four contribution period is paid up to a maximum 90 days of unemployment once in a lifetime subject to certain conditions. This has now been raised to 50%. The conditions stipulate that the insured person should have been rendered unemployed during the period relief is claimed. He or she should have been in insur- able employment for a minimum period of two years immediately before his/her unemployment.
It also says that the insured person should have contributed for at least 78 days during each of preceding four contribution periods.
The move comes as it has been reported that as many as 6.1 million young people (15-24 years) may lose jobs in India in 2020 if the containment of the vi- rus takes six months (roughly till September). A report by Asian
Development Bank (ADB) and International Labor Organiza- tion (ILO) said this week that in India, two-thirds of firm-level ap- prenticeships and three quarters of internships were completely disrupted during the pandemic. The report calls on governments in the region to adopt urgent, large-scale and targeted mea- sures to generate jobs for the youth, keep education and train- ing on track, and minimize future scarring of more than 660 mil- lion young people in the region.
Even before the Covid-19 crisis, youth in Asia and the Pa- cific faced challenges in the labor market, resulting in high unem- ployment rates and large shares of youth excluded from both school and work.
As per experts, the country is not only in the middle of a pan- demic but also in the middle of a job epidemic as well because the center for the monitoring
of the Indian economy has said, 27% of the labor now seems to be unemployed. With 27% of the employment data that the center for monitoring of the In- dian economy has reported are people who have lost their jobs, which means that the data was about 7% before the lockdown, it’s now jumped up significantly and that’s deeply problematic. What’s worse is that things could take a turn south from here on as well.
As India moves towards re- building lives and livelihood, a Mumbai based think tank has raised the alarm. A serious em- ployment crisis has taken place in the country as several crucial sectors of the economy have been severely impacted by the coronavirus lockdown. The latest monthly data from the center for monitoring the Indian economy says one out of four employed
Continued at next page... >>
w w w. T h e I n d i a n E Y E . u s