ESI Ki Baat , a report on the functioning of Employees’ State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) prepared by Safe In India, a non-profit organisation, has warned the Union government against the reported attempts to privatise the ESIC. It has also recommended that the wage ceiling to avail ESIC coverage could be increased to ₹33,000 from the present figure of ₹21,000.
Releasing the report, Director General of the ESIC, Ashok Kumar Singh, said the implementation of the Code on Social Security would help in more number of workers availing the ESIC benefits.
Mr. “So, there is a big responsibility on the shoulders of the government. We are supporting the government to arrive at a suitable scheme for the gig and platform workers,” he added. “Considering the difficulty in hiring specialist doctors for public sector hospitals, this is a positive development for IPs from ESIC. This provides much-needed support for IPs.
He said Panchdeep 2.0, an upgraded digital platform engineered to scale healthcare and cash benefit services seamlessly nationwide, would soon be rolled out. On ESIC’s tie-up with 2,836 hospitals, the report noted that though it expanded access to treatment for Insured Persons (IPs), it delayed treatment and out-of-pocket expenses persisted and could even result in increasing privatisation. Singh said the number of beneficiaries wa growing very fast and the ESIC was creating a digital system where human interference was less so that the whole process could be based on rules.
On implementing the Social Security Code and the expansion of ESIC’s ambit, he said the definition of the establishment and workers was so wide that even farmers could be included into the social security network. The report said private involvement should be permitted only where there was demonstrated evidence of improved outcomes for workers, employers, or the ESIC, and only where the ESIC retained control, set the rules, and could reverse the arrangement. “Privatisation as a default or ideological position is counter-productive,” it said. The report said healthcare privatisation functioned only where regulatory capacity was sufficient to enforce standards, prevent cream-skimming, and hold private providers accountable. “Any reform proposal that depends on the private sector must demonstrate how regulation will be designed, enforced, and sustained,” it added, and urged the government that proposed reforms must learn from international experience. But this also shifts focus towards privatisation from improving the ESIC’s own infrastructure,” the report said.
