Anadi Kumar Sahu, Minister-in-Charge, Bengal Labour Department, urged ESIC to take stringent action against the defaulting employers to ensure justice to the workers. "ESI scheme should be extended to all workers in an establishmet," he said, adding that in the fiscal 2007-08, Rs 17 crore have been spent on super specialty treatment such as kidney and heart transplantation and advanced cardiology treatments in all the 13 ESIC hospitals as well as in the tie-up hospitals in Bengal. Currently, ESI scheme covers seven lakh employees in Bengal and the number of insurers goes up to 28 lakh if their families are included. "The scheme covers 15,675 industries in the organised sector at present. Our plan is to include one lakh more employees under the scheme this fiscal," Sahu said.
"The scheme covers four crore people in India spreading across four lakh industrial units in the organised sector. This fiscal, we plan to cover all those establishments having a minimum of 10 people," said ESIC Director General PC Chaturvedi.
Acknowledging West Bengal being the first state to propose for an ESI medical college, BK Sahu said, "Not only in Bengal, we have plans to come up with one ESI medical college in every state."