MINISTER OF LABOUR AND EMPLOYMENT
(SHRI BHUPENDER YADAV)
(a) to (d): A Statement is laid on the Table of the House.
* *****
STATEMENT REFERRED TO IN REPLY TO PARTS (a) TO (d) OF LOK SABHA STARRED QUESTION NO. 341 FOR ANSWER ON 28.03.2022 ASKED BY SHRIMATI SUMALATHA AMBAREESH AND SHRI NALIN KUMAR KATEEL REGARDING REFORMS IN ESIC.
(a): No, Sir. The Employees’ State Insurance (ESI) Scheme framed under the ESI Act, 1948 has a network of 160 hospitals, 1,517 dispensaries, 76 Dispensary-cum-Branch Offices (DCBOs) and caters to 3.39 crore Insured Persons (IPs) and 13.16 crore beneficiaries including the family members of the IPs. Providing better services to its beneficiaries by ESI Corporation (ESIC) is a continuous process. To strengthen service delivery, ESIC has made tie-up arrangements with 2,104 private hospitals and empaneled 1,003 Insured Medical Practitioners (IMPs) to supplement the ESIC run medical care. Further, at places where ESI hospitals are not available, integration has been done with Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY) and the entire expenditure for treatment of such ESI beneficiaries is borne by ESIC. Furthermore, to provide specialized services, referral services are also made available to eligible beneficiaries.
ESIC has also digitized various services provided by it including registration of employers and establishments, demographic registration of employees/ insured persons and their family members, seeding of bank account details, health records, revenue income/ expenditure etc. to give efficient services.
(b) & (c): Taking into account existing facilities in ESIC and with objective to further improve the services, Niti Aayog, in consultation with ESIC has identified four broad areas of reforms which inter-alia include network expansion, changes in Governance & Management, upgradation of IT Management and Increased Beneficiary Engagement. Further, in its meeting held on 04.12.2021, three Ad-hoc committees were formed by the ESI Corporation, one each on (i) Building & Infrastructure of ESIC, (ii) Human Resource Management and Capacity Building, and (iii) IT Infrastructure in ESIC. Based on the recommendations, dashboards for monitoring of vacancies, bed-occupancy in hospitals and construction projects have been developed.
(d): The Code on Social Security, 2020 has been passed by the Parliament which inter alia envisages expansion of facilities of ESIC at all India level. In addition, some of the major initiatives taken by the ESIC to improve quality and strengthen governance are as under:-
i. Reduction in the rate of ESI Contribution from 6.5% of wages to 4% of wages.
ii. Starting of 07 new hospitals at Rudrapur (Uttrakhand), Alwar and Udiapur (Rajasthan), Bihta (Bihar), Raipur and Korba (Chhatishgarh), Angul (Odisha).
iii. Approval for setting up of 54 additional ESI Hospitals.
iv. Approval for setting up of 109 ESI dispensaries to be run by State Governments
v. To supplement the medical facilities provided by state government, setting up of 76 new Dispensary-cum-Branch Offices (DCBOs) across the country.
vi. Collaboration with Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY) in 157 districts across the country.
vii. Empanelment of Govt./Private hospitals in the country for providing secondary and tertiary care medical services.
viii. For filling up of vacancies advertisements have been issued to recruit 1120 General Duty Medical Officers (GDMO) and 297 Specialists doctors through direct recruitment.
ix. A dedicated programme focusing on preventive health check-up of ESI beneficiaries has been launched by ESIC hospitals in industrial clusters of 15 cities in the country.
x. Formation of state level ESI Societies so that States have financial and administrative freedom to take decision.
xi. Enhancement of 50% of bed strength, if bed occupancy is more than 70% in ESIC/ESIS hospitals for last three consecutive years.
xii. Hospitals attached to the medical colleges besides providing secondary care, are establishing super-specialty services for the beneficiaries. (Cath-lab, dialysis, oncology, paediatric surgery etc.).
xiii. Participation of ESIC Medical Colleges in National Institute of Ranking Framework (NIRF) ranking.
*****
Download PDF Files
