State's ESI worker load 5th highest in country

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Ludhiana, January 15

In a startling revelation, a Employees’ State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) worker load in Punjab has come out to be almost 75 per cent more than the national average.

This was revealed in a reply to a question in the recently concluded Parliament Session.

It was also disclosed that the Centre had received a proposal from the state government to set up six new ESI hospitals.

These will be set up at six locations across the state – Doraha in Ludhiana, Sector 66 in Mohali, Lalru in Mohali, Rajpura in Patiala, Malerkotla, and Bathinda.

The setting up of the hospitals is an ongoing process and was based on the number of insured persons in an area in accordance with the norms of the ESIC.

The state-wise details of the number of beds at hospitals run by ESIC tabled by Teli showed that Punjab had 12,16,430 workers insured under the ESIC for whom there were 300 sanctioned beds in the ESI hospitals, which work out to be 4,055 workers per ESI hospital bed.

This was almost 74.63 per cent more than the national average of 2,322 workers per ESI hospital bed.