Labour ministry is planning to move to a public-private-partnership mode to run and administer its flagship provident fund and medical insurance schemes that it wants to make universal. The ministry reckons that private intermediaries would be needed as the schemes are scaled up to 10 times to about 50 crore workers, from its current coverage.
These schemes are at present run by the Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) and the Employee State Insurance Corporation (ESIC). A senior government official told ET that the idea is to rope in intermediate agencies, much on the lines of the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA), which manages the National Pension Scheme. Currently, EPFO and ESIC provide provident fund and medical insurance cover to over five crore subscribers and the schemes are run by the labour minister-led central board of trustees (CBT). The EPFO and ESIC corpus are managed by portfolio managers under the supervision of CBT.
Source: Economic Times
