News »Browse Articles » Sacked staff may get unemployment allowance for a year

25 Dec 2008 Delhi: Unemployment allowance for workers retrenched in the organised sector may now be extended up to one year instead of six months,according to government officials. The move can potentially benefit 1.21 crore workers registered under a Union labour ministry scheme. However, over the past four years, only 2,149 employees have availed of this allowance, which is attributed mainly to lack of awareness about the scheme.

Under the Rajiv Gandhi Shramik Kalyan Yojana (RGSKY), employees who have lost jobs due to “retrenchment, closure of factory, or permanent invalidity at work” can avail of unemployment allowance every month for a period of six months. The allowance for every month is equivalent to the half of an employee’s monthly wage.

The scheme, the only one in the country dealing with retrenchment, is among the 11 welfare programmes run by Employees’ State Insurance Corporation (ESIC), an autonomous body under the ministry of labour. The ESIC corpus is fed from employers’ contribution at the rate of 4.75% of an employee’s monthly salary, and the employees’ contribution of 1.75% of the salary.

Union minister for labour Oscar Fernandes, who is also the chairman of ESIC, mooted the possibility of the six-month extension of the scheme since it was found that during the past four years, ESIC had disbursed only Rs 3.15 crore from its Rs 300-crore kitty earmarked for RGSKY.

Source:
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/News_By_Industry/Jobs/Sacked_staff_may_

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