Maharashtra tops the ABRY beneficial PF subsidy scheme; at 6.5 lakh new employment generation against 40 lakhs across the nation

Atmanirbhar Bharat Rojgar Yojana (ABRY) is facing low registrations; the scheme was rolled out in December last year as a Providend Fund Subsidy Scheme aimed at providing incentives via a PF Subsidy to new recruitments is not performing as per the government’s expectations.

The Central government had targeted the scheme to reach beneficiaries of new employment generation to the tune of 71.8 lakh by the end of the current fiscal year, but the figure has been standing at 39.72 lakh till December 4, as officially stated by Labour Ministry replying to a written question put up in Rajya Sabha.

ABRY beneficiaries till December 4 have received a disbursement of Rs 2612 crores by the Central government.

The scheme states that the government will provide a two-year subsidy for new employees recruited between October 1 2020, and March 31 2022, the subsidy will pay the employee share of the EPF contribution (12 per cent) in the case of new employees in firms that employs more than 1,000 employees for two years. Normally, the ratio of EPFO is 12 per cent of Employees’ and 12 per cent of Employers’ wage plus DA allowance towards the Employee Provident Fund.

The benefit shall be available to employees earning up to Rs 15,000 per month in every firm which employs a thousand people.

The scheme benefit shall be available for two years from the date of registration of the employee with the EPF.

The employee who will be benefitted should not have been walking in any establishment which is EPFO registered before October 1 2020; the employee should not hold any Universal Account Number (UAN) or EPF number account before the above date.

Firms that have less than 50 workers are directed to recruit at least two new employees, and establishments with a strength of more than 50 employees must recruit at least five new employees to be eligible for the above scheme.

This scheme was announced in November 2020 being a part of Atmanirbhar Bharat Package 3.0; the scheme was approved to curb the rising unemployment rate on December 9 last year. The terminal date was extended from June 30 this year to March 31, 2022, as the fund was seen to be low utilised; however, the estimated expenditure of Rs 36,000 crores has been decreased to Rs 22,098 crores.

The Labour Ministry has replied in Lok Sabha on December 13 that Maharashtra is top on the scheme benefit by recruiting 6.5 lakh employees followed by Tamil Nadu 5.35 lakh employees and lastly,4.44 lakhs new employees by the state of Gujarat.