Atmanirbhar Bharat Rojgar Yojana: Key points you should know and how it will benefit salaried professionals

The Union Cabinet has approved Rs 22,810 crore towards the Atmanirbhar Bharat Rojgar Yojana (ABRY) to boost employment and incentivise employment creation in India’s formal job sector.

This comes amid the COVID-19 pandemic as is a part of the Centre’s Atmanirbhar Bharat 3.0 economic package.

The Cabinet, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has sanctioned expenditure of Rs 1,584 crore for the current financial year (FY20-21), and Rs 22,810 crore for the entire scheme duration of 2020-2023.

>> Government of India will provide subsidy for two years in respect of new employees engaged on or after October 01, 2020 and up to June 30, 2021

>> Government will pay full 24 percent contribution of wages towards the Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) for two years — comprising the employees' 12 percent contribution and employers' 12 percent contribution, for new employees in establishments that have up to 1,000 employees.

>> Government will pay only employees' share of EPF contribution (12 percent of wages) for two years for new employees in establishments that have more than 1,000 employees.

>> Eligibility of the scheme extends to employees drawing monthly wage of less than Rs 15,000: – even if they were not working in an establishment registered with the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) before October 1, 2020 or did not have a Universal Account Number (UAN) or EPF Member account number prior to October 1, 2020.

>> Eligibility of the scheme extends to employees in possession of UAN and who drew monthly wage of less than Rs 15,000 but lost their job during the pandemic – between March 1, 2020 and September 30, 2020 and did not gain employment in an EPF covered establishment up till September 30, 2020.

>> Employees contribution will be credited into Aadhaar seeded account of members by the EPFO in electronic manner.

>> The EPFO shall develop a software for the scheme and also develop a procedure which is transparent and accountable at their end.

>> EPFO shall work out modality to ensure that there is no overlapping of benefits provided under ABRY with any other scheme implemented by EPFO.

When asked about the number of beneficiaries under the scheme, Union Labour Minister Santosh Gangwar, who announced the scheme said he “estimated lakhs of workers will be benefitted through the plan.”