PM Gati Shakti to aid in expanding social security

New Delhi: The labour and employment ministry has boarded the PM Gati Shakti portal to identify and bridge gaps in social security coverage across the country and expand its health infrastructure to industrial clusters as well as special economic zones (SEZs) for the benefit of workers, said the secretary to the ministry Sumita Dawra.

She told ET that the idea is to leverage the infrastructure data available on the portal to extend social security coverage to workers engaged in existing and upcoming industrial clusters around these projects while also ensuring availability of Employees' State Insurance Corporation's hospital and dispensary in the closest vicinity to these clusters.

To begin with, the ministry has geotagged 1.3 million establishments covered under the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), about 1.5 million under the Employees' State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) and 104 ESIC hospitals for assessing the current social security coverage and planning future expansion.

Besides, the EPFO and ESIC are examining the 268 SEZs identified through the Gati Shakti platform to bring numerous workers under social security schemes, Dawra said.

"Going forward, we plan to onboard other schemes of the ministry like the National Career Services centres, especially those for the differently abled, to encourage all-round and inclusive development and benefit the poorest of the poor," she said.

According to Dawra, the geotagging of pensioners will help address the challenges of the pensioners who face difficulty in submitting the digital life certificates and this data can also be used for generating concentration maps on the PM Gati Shakti portal which can then be used by the ESIC or any agency providing medical benefits to map the potential clientele.

The ministry plans to use the land availability details on the portal to identify suitable sites for the development of health projects, converge ESIC database with Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY) to enable PMJAY beneficiaries to utilise the facilities of ESIC hospitals and link the EPFO's industrial accident monitoring portal with the Integrated Road Accident database of the road transport and highways ministry for real-time monitoring of industrial accidents and providing quick relief to EPFO subscribers and their families.