The Indian Cabinet gave the green signal to the scheme to generate employment under the Atma Nirbhar Bharat Rozgar Yojana. This move will give more incentives to employers for the creation of more formal jobs.
The ‘take home salary’ of the formal workers under the Provident Fund Organisation — who draw up to Rs 15,000 per month— will receive a hike. The whole scheme will cost the government up to Rs 22,810 crores with registration open between October 1, 2020 and June 30, 2021. The Labour Ministry is yet to notify about the rules for the scheme.
The Government will reimburse 24 per cent — 12 per cent each for both employees and employers— in all the new formal jobs created in enterprises, for a period of two years. The enterprises must have an employee strength of at least 1000. The reimbursement will be restricted to 12 per cent of the employees’ contribution only.
In November, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, had already announced the Atma Nirbhar Package 3.0 which had a scheme to generate pan-India employment. For establishments with 50 employees to receive the benefit, a precondition was to add a minimum of five jobs.
By March 2021, around 15-20 lakh employees are expected to benefit from this scheme. A similar scheme launched in 2016 which remained valid until 2019, had created 1.21 crore formal jobs in the country. In that scheme, only employees were receiving the reimbursement.
