WORKMEN COMPENSATION AMMENDMENT
Renaming the Workmen’s Compensation Act, 1923 as the Employee’s Compensation
Act to make it gender sensitive.
Raising the compensation paid to the workers and their family members in case of death
to Rs. 1.2 lakh from current Rs. 80,000.
Raising the compensation for permanent disability to Rs. 1.4 lakh from present Rs.
90,000. Also the funeral expenses were proposed to be raised to Rs. 5,000 from Rs.
2,500.
The Bill also proposed to empower the Central Government to specify monthly wages for
the purpose of compensation and timely enhancement of the minimum rates of
compensation.
Besides this the Bill even contained a provision for actual reimbursement of medical
expenses incurred on account of injury caused during course of employment. There were
provisions for disposal of compensation cases by Commission within a time period of 3
months.
THE PAYMENT OF BONUS AMMENDMENT
The Payment of Bonus Act, 1965 is the principal act for the payment of bonus to the employees
which was formed with an objective for rewarding employees for their good work for the
organization. It is a step forward to share the prosperity of the establishment reflected by the
profits earned by the contributions made by capital, management and labour with the employees.
Recently a Bill has been drafted for further amendment of the Act. This may be enacted by
Parliament in the Sixty-first Year of the Republic of India. The Act may be called as the Payment
of Bonus (Amendment) Act, 2010 and it shall come in force on such date that the Central
Government may notify by the Official Gazette appointed.
Amendments that proposed are as follows: (Please note that the bill is yet to be placed in the
Parliament)
Amendment in Section 2 of the Act: It is proposed to make amendment in Section 2 clause 13
which defines “employee” and who can be covered under the Act. “employee” means any person
(other than an apprentice) employed on a salary or wage not exceeding [three thousand and five
hundred rupees] per mensem in any industry to do any skilled or unskilled manual, supervisory,
managerial, administrative, technical or clerical work for hire or reward, whether the terms of
employment be express or implied. In this the word “three thousand and five hundred rupees” is
to be substituted by “ten thousand rupees”.
Amendment in Section 10 of the Act: Section 10 is known as “Payment of minimum bonus”
and which provides details regarding minimum amount of payable bonus to eligible employees.
As per the proposed amendment, subject to the other provisions of the Act, “every employer
shall be bound to pay to every employee in respect of the accounting year commencing on any
day in the year 2009 and in respect of every subsequent accounting year, a minimum bonus
which shall be 11 per cent of the salary or wage earned by the employee during the accounting
year or one hundred rupees, whichever is higher, whether or not the employer has any allocable
surplus in the accounting year:
Provided that there an employee has not employed fifteen years of age at the beginning of the
accounting year, the provision of this section shall have effect in relation to such employee as if
for the words "one hundred rupees", the words "sixty rupees" were substituted.”Earlier the
minimum bonus was equivalent to 8.33 percent of the salary or wage earned by the employee
during the year.
Amendment in Section 12 of the Act: Section 12 refers as “Calculation of bonus with respect to
certain employees” under which earlier where the salary or wage of an employee exceeds [three
thousand and five hundred rupees] per mensem, the bonus payable to such employee under
section 10 or, as the case may be, under section 11, shall be calculated as if his salary or wage
were [three thousand and five hundred rupees] per mensem.] But now it is proposed to be
substitute word “three thousand and five hundred rupees” to “five thousand rupees”.
The amendment Bill is introduced to meet the high rate of inflation and provide support to the
employees by changing definition of employees who will be eligible for coverage under the
Payment of Bonus Act.
Part time employees to be covered under the
ESI Act
by Khushi Mehta— last modified Oct 29, 2010 06:35 AM
The Employees’ State Insurance Act (ESI), 1948, provides not only accident benefit but also
other benefits such as sickness benefit, maternity benefit and medical benefit to employees of
factories and establishments. It also provides for dependents’ benefits to the dependents of such
employees.
As per the ESI Act, any premises whereon 20 or more persons are employed or were employed
for wages is covered under this Act. An 'employee' under Section 2(9) of ESI Act, means “any
person who is engaged/employed for wages/salary in connection with the work of the
establishment”. However, employees whose wage limit exceeds Rs. 15000 pm with effect from
May 1, 2010 are excluded under this Act.
The question frequently raised is “whether the part-time employees are to be covered under this
Act”. To this, the provisions of the Act refers broadly that all categories of employees are
covered under this Act. Whether they are Regular, Casual, Badli, Temporary Contract, Part-time,
etc. The part-time employees employed on contract basis are also eligible for coverage under this
Act
