Published Paper Details:

Employees' State Insurance Scheme of India is an integrated social security scheme tailored to provide social protection to workers and their dependants, in the organised sector, in contingencies, such as, sickness, maternity and death or disablement due to an employment injury or occupational hazard. The Employees' State Insurance Act, 1948 (ESI Act) provides for health care and cash benefit payments in the case of sickness, maternity and employment injury. The Act applies to all non-seasonal factories run with power and employing 10 or more persons and to those factories which run without power and employing 20 or more persons. The appropriate Government may after notification in the Official Gazette, extend the provision of the Act to any other establishment or class of establishments, industrial, commercial, agriculture or otherwise. Despite all the endeavours made by the Corporation for the effective functioning of the ESI Scheme in the country, public discernment of the Corporation has not been very positive. They felt that the Corporation has not given any regard for the quality of services and benefits provided to the insured persons and their dependents. Further, no adequate steps are being taken to improve the awareness of the Scheme among the insured persons and employers. Therefore, this paper analyses some of the key issues in the working of the ESIC and the extent to which they address the question of social protection in the country.