GADVASU declares EPF, ESI for contractual staff

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, August 23

Even though Guru Angad Dev Veterinary and Animal Sciences University (GADVASU) announced to extend the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) and the Employees' State insurance (ESI) facility to its contractual staff, the contractual staff said the university authorities did not inform them about the same. 

The contractual staff had been sitting on hunger strike for their long-pending demands.

The contractual and daily paid workers are on strike from the last week to press upon the authorities to accept their demands.

Jagmohan Singh, president of the Contractual and Daily Paid Labour Workers Union, GADVASU, said "These announcements are being made just to mislead them as nothing concrete has been done so far. This announcement is just a false promise to lure them to end their hunger strike and resume work. No employee has been enrolled under the ESI so far," he said. 

Meanwhile, Dr Sushil Prabhakar, Registrar of GADVASU, said the university employs around 500-800 daily paid labour. He said the university might be the first educational institute in the region to fully extend this facility to all its contractual employees. He said this scheme would cost GADVASU to the tune of Rs. 1.5 crore annually.

He further said the ESI was a comprehensive social security scheme designed to protect the workers against the hazards of sickness, maternity, disablement and death due to employment injury and provide medical care to the insured employees and their families. It provided financial assistance to compensate the loss of his/her wages during the period of his/her abstention from work due to sickness, maternity, and employment injury. The insured person and his family were entitled to the benefits from the very first day of his/her joining the scheme. In case of the death of the insured employee due to employment injury, the spouse, widowed mother and children were entitled to dependents benefits, he added.

"All members covered under the EPF are insured for their life during the service. The EPF organisation pays additional sum as the Employee Deposit Linked Insurance Scheme (EDLI) benefit to the nominee of the deceased employee if the death occurs while in employment. While fulfilling the conditions, EPF scheme provides life-long pension to spouse, pension to children till they reach the age of 25 years and pension to dependent father or mother. Monthly pension can be drawn even if in employment after attaining 58 years of age," he added.