ESIC alert! 7.92 lakh new members joined in June; in May, it was 4.76 lakh - Check details of NSO report

According to official data, which provides a perspective on formal sector employment in the country, around 7.92 lakh new members joined the ESIC-run social security scheme in June 2020, compared to 4.76 lakh in May this year. As many as 8.21 lakh new members had joined the scheme run by the Employees' State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) in March 2020, against 11.83 lakh subscribers in the previous month of February, according to the payroll data released in May.

The latest data is part of a report released by the National Statistical Office (NSO) on Tuesday.

According to the data, gross new enrolments with ESIC stood at 2.58 lakh in April, which further rose to 4.76 lakh in May and subsequently to 7.92 lakh in June, showing improvement in employment scenario in the country.

The government had imposed a nation-wide lockdown on March 25 to contain the spread of coronavirus infections. The unlock phase started in June. The NSO report showed gross enrolments of new subscribers with the ESIC were 1.51 crore in 2019-20, against 1.49 crore in the previous fiscal.

During the period September 2017 to March 2018, around 83.35 lakh new subscribers had joined the ESIC scheme.

The report said that gross new enrolments with the ESIC during the September 2017 to June 2020 period were nearly 4 crore. The NSO report is based on the payroll data of new subscribers of various social security schemes run by the ESIC, the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) and the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA).

It has been releasing such data of these bodies since April 2018, covering the period starting from September 2017.

According to the report, net new enrolments with retirement fund body EPFO stood at 6.55 lakh in June, up from 1.72 lakh in May this year. Provisional payroll data released by the EPFO last month had showed that net new enrolments stood at 1 lakh in April this year. The figure has now been revised to 20,164. The net new enrolments with EPFO had dropped to 5.72 lakh in March 2020 from 10.21 lakh in February, as per the payroll data released in May.

The net new enrolments with the EPFO hover around 7 lakh every month on an average.