What Is Atmanirbhar Bharat Rozgar Yojna? Know All About Centre's Scheme To Encourage Fresh Hiring

The Cabinet approved an expenditure of Rs 1,584 crores for the current financial year and Rs 22,810 crore for the entire scheme period - 2020-2023.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. (File Photo/ Getty)

New Delhi: The Union Government on Wednesday approved Rs 22,810 crore for the Atmanirbhar Bharat Rozgar Yojna. In the employment scheme, which aims at encouraging businesses to do fresh hiring, the government will provide the employee and the employer contribution to the retirement fund for new hires by businesses and entities. "The scheme will provide benefits to lakhs of people in the formal or organized sector," said Union Labour Minister Santosh Kumar Gangwar. The Cabinet approved an expenditure of Rs 1,584 crores for the current financial year and Rs 22,810 crore for the entire scheme period - 2020-2023. What is Atmanirbhar Bharat Rozgar Yojna? The employment package was announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in November, and the announcement came as a part of the third stimulus package aimed at helping the Covid-19 hit the Indian economy. According to the employment scheme, every establishment that is registered with the EPFO will be incentivised to hire people who were not registered with EPFO earlier as well as those who lost their jobs between March 1, 2020, to September 30, 2020. Under the Atmanirbhar Bharat Rozgar Yojana scheme, the Central Government will provide subsidies for new employees in establishments of up to 1000 employees.  Benefits For Employees Under the scheme, any new employee joining employment in the EPFO registered establishments with monthly wages less than Rs 15,000. EPFO members drawing monthly wages of less than Rs 15,000 who exited employment during the coronavirus pandemic from March 1 to September 30 and had been hired on or after October 1, 2020. Benefits For Employers In order to encourage businesses and enterprises to hire fresh employees, the government under the scheme will give subsidy to the employers on the following scale-

• Institutions employing up to 1,000 personnel, will get a contribution of 24 per cent of the wages, which will include 12 per cent of employee wage and 12 per cent of the employer contribution.
• In institutions with more than 1,000 personnel, only 12 per cent of the wages of the employees will be contributed from the government.

 Eligibility Criteria For Businesses to Avail the Scheme

• To avail of benefits under this scheme, the organizations must be registered with EPFO.
• Businesses with fewer than 50 employees will have to hire at least two employees, and those with more than 50 employees will have to hire five or more employees.