Thursday, March 29, 2018

Govt to give entire EPF Contribution for new employees


Govt to give entire EPF Contribution for new employees

New Delhi: Union Cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday 29th March 2018 decided to give entire 12% contribution to the EPF for new employees in the informal sector.

This move will benefit about 1 crores employees in the informal sector and it will cost the exchequer around Rs. 6500 Crore to Rs. 10,000 Crore.

At a press briefing after the cabinet meeting, Minister of State for Finance Santosh Kumar Gangwar  announced the Cabinet decision.

Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar revealed that two important decision regarding education were taken during the meeting. “The issue is that in public institutions, fee is less or free. But in private intitutions, the fees is very high. So, the decision is that Rs.6,600 crore has been set aside for the interest on education loans.
This was started in 2009, but between 2009-14, only Rs.800 crore was spent a year. From 2014, it became Rs.1,800 crore a year,” he said.

He announced that from 2017-20, the sum will be Rs.2,200 crore a year. This will benefit 10 lakh students over three years for those students whose family incomes are less than Rs.4.5 lakh a year. The scheme was reviewed by the Ministry with inputs from IIM Bangalore.

Mr.Javadekar said that after consulting the States, it was decided to merge the three existing schemes on improving public education - Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) and Teacher Education (TE).

“Instead of blackboard, there will be a digital board so that quality education can be provided. We have created a committee for this, which will give their report in a month,” he said.

It was also announced that from next year, textbooks published by the NCERT will have QR codes through which additional content can be shown on the laptops. The Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya is being extended from 8th to 12th for Beti padhao, beti bachao.

Terming the CBSE question paper leak an ‘unfortunate incident, Mr. Javadekar said that he sympathised with students and parents, and that investigations were on to nab the culprits.

“CBSE has earned a name for conducting good examinations. It was chosen to conduct the medical NEET exams. But this time there has been a breach. The CBSE will declare what is the next step, maybe on Monday or Tuesday. But we will make the system foolproof,” he said.

Jitendra Singh, who is the Minister of State for the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region said an important decision to do with the North-East was taken by the cabinet. “In the last few years, the development being given to the North-East has been like never before,” he said.

He highlighted that the focus on the North-East was showing transformation results. “The decision was that so far the 90:10 funding programme for the North-East and hill states has now been made 100% funding by the Centre,” he added.

The ongoing projects will be as per the older formula, and the new projects will be completely funded by the Centre. “We have also announced a North-East Road Development Scheme for the ‘orphan’ roads. The 100% funding will have a greater focus on certain sectors such as bamboo, regional tourism, higher education,” Mr. Singh said.

Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said that an MoU was signed with Zambia whereby India would become a centre for legal training for Zambian nationals. “First, European countries were centres of training, now India is becoming the centre for developing countries,” he said.

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