E-Paper
471 units in Ludhiana avail benefits under Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana
Under the scheme, the government will pay the provident fund contribution of both the employer and employees (12% each) for the next three months
Under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana (PMGKY), as many as 471 establishments in the district have availed the benefits worth Rs 1.19 crore for Employees Provident Fund (EPF) contribution till April 22.
The government had announced the financial relief to help the establishment in the financial crisis due to the lockdown imposed for containing the spread of novel coronavirus.
“It is encouraging to see that 471 establishments have been benefited under the PMGKY scheme. Following which, an amount of Rs 1.19 crore has been disbursed among 7,847 employees across the district. These establishments will continue to get similar benefits under the scheme for 3 months till May 20,” said EPFO regional commissioner Dheeraj Gupta.
Over 1,200 establishments in Ludhiana are eligible to avail the benefit under the scheme. So far, 743 establishments have submitted their declaration and are in process to avail the benefit under the scheme, he said, adding that they are sending details of the scheme through field officers and emails to all eligible establishments in Ludhiana, so that they can avail benefits of the scheme. The last date for the applying under the scheme is May 15.
The establishments that have availed benefits under the scheme include Raikot Public School, ISC Projects Private Limited, GNC Dyeing and Finishing Mills, M/s SB Prime Sales, Mandeep Singh and Associates, Shaligram Jain Public School, Fortune India, Providence Textiles, Falcon Industries Ludhiana, Jai Auto Private Limited, Big-Ben Industries and A2Z Wastemanagement, among others.
“I have applied under the scheme last week and after submitting the declaration and other formalities, the EPFO department has approved my application. They have already disbursed the EPF contribution for this month,” told Angad Singh, director of Big Ben Industries.
While many establishments in the city have applied to avail the financial relief under the scheme, some of the industrial organisations have recently moved to the Ministry of labour and employment urging the latter to relax norms under the scheme, so that all establishments irrespective of the headcount of workers can avail the benefit under the scheme.
The Punjab Dyers’ Association (Ludhiana) that includes around 300 dyeing units’ owners in the city and Bahadur K Textile and Knitwear Association that includes over 5,500 units are among those who have urged the government to relax the norms.
Financial relief under the scheme
Under the scheme, the government will pay the provident fund contribution of both the employer and employees (12% each) for the next three months. However, the financial relief measures concerning the PF employers and employees contributions, under the PMGKY announced by the finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on March 26, is applicable to only those establishments that have 100 or less number of employees with 90% of them having wages less than Rs 15,000 per month. The central government has allocated Rs 5,000 crore under the scheme.
