Accident Attorney CO
INTRODUCTION
The Employees? State Insurance Act is a landmark in the history of social security in India. The Workmen?s Compensation Act provide for compensation in case of occupational disease or compensation for injury by accident. However, there was nothing to ensure the workers with benefits in case of sickness, maternity, disablement, etc. the Employees? State Insurance Act, 1948 filled this gap. The scope of coverage of the Employees? State Insurance Act is much wider than the Workmen?s Compensation Act. Further, the benefits provided under the Employees? State Insurance Act are much more liberal than those available to a workman under the Workmen?s Compensation Act, 1923.
The ESI Act provides for the following benefits to workers insured under this Act: ?Sickness Benefit ?Maternity Benefit ?Disablement Benefit ?Dependent?s Benefit ?Medical Benefit ?Funeral Benefit
Object of the Act
The object of the Act is to provide for certain benefits to employees in case of sickness, maternity and employment injury. It is a legislation which aims at bringing about social and economic justice to the labor class of the country. The benefits which the Act intends to provide to the employees are of a nature which would be difficult for any individual factory owner to provide for his employees. The Act attempts to confer sickness, maternity, disablement, dependents, medical, and funeral benefits on industrial workers on an all-India basis.
Applicability of the Act
The Employees? State Insurance (ESI) Act applies, in the first instance, to all factories other than seasonal factories. It shall not, however, apply to factories or establishments, belonging to, or under the control of the government whose employees are otherwise in receipt of benefits substantially similar or superior to the benefits provided under this Act. The appropriate government may, in consultation with the Employees? State Insurance Corporation or with the approval of the Central Government, extend the provisions of the Act, or any of them, to any other establishment or class of establishments, industrial, commercial, agricultural or otherwise. But before extending the Act to any of these establishments, the appropriate government shall give six months? notice of its intention of doing so by notification in the Official Gazette.
The Act is not applicable in the following cases: ?Seasonal factories ?Factories belonging to or under the control of the Government
whose employees are otherwise in receipt of benefits substantially similar or superior to the benefits provided under this Act ?Any member of the Indian naval, military or air force ?Any employed person whose wages exceed such wages as may be prescribed by the Central Government ?Factories working with the aid of power wherein less than 10 persons are employed ?Factories working with the aid of power wherein less than 20 persons are employed ?Mines subject to the operation of the Mines Act, 1952 ?Railway running sheds
Important Definition
Appropriate Government ?Appropriate Government? means establishments under the control of the Central Government, or a railway administration, or a major port, or a mine, or oilfield, the Central Government, and in all other cases, the State Government.
Benefit Period ?Benefit Period? means such period, being not less than twenty-five but not exceeding twenty-seven consecutive weeks or six consecutive months corresponding to the contribution period, as may be specified in the regulations.
Confinement ?Confinement? means labor resulting in the issue of a living child, or labor after twenty-six weeks of pregnancy resulting in the issue of a child, whether alive or dead.
Contribution ?Contribution? means the sum of money payable to the Corporation by the principal employer in respect of an employee and includes any amount payable by or on behalf of the employee in accordance with the provisions of this Act.
Contribution Period ?Contribution Period? means such period, not being less than twenty-five but not exceeding twenty-seven consecutive weeks or six consecutive months, as may be specified in the regulations. Provided that in the case of the first contribution period, a longer or shorter period may be specified by or under the regulations.
Corporation ?Corporation? means the Employees? State Insurance Corporation set up under this Act.
Dependent
?Dependent? means any of the following relatives of a deceased insured person, namely: 1.A widow, a minor legitimate or adopted son, an unmarried legitimate or adopted daughter or a widowed mother; 2.If wholly dependent on the earnings of the insured person at the time of his death, a legitimate or adopted son or daughter who has attained the age of eighteen years; and 3.If wholly or in part dependent on the earnings of the insured person at the time of his death, 4.a parent other than a widowed mother, 5.a minor illegitimate son, an unmarried illegitimate daughter or a daughter illegitimate or adopted or illegitimate if married and a minor or if widowed and a minor, a minor brother or an unmarried sister or a widowed sister if a minor, a widowed daughter-in-law, a minor child of a pre-deceased son, a minor child of a pre-deceased daughter where no parent of the child is alive, or a paternal grandparent if no parent of the insured person is alive.
Employment Injury
?Employment Injury? means a personal injury to an employee caused by accident or an occupational disease arising out of and in the course of employment, whether the accident occurs or the occupational disease is contracted within or outside the territorial limits of India.
Exempted Employee
?Exempted Employee? means an employee who is not liable under this Act to pay the employee?s contribution.
Family ?Family? means the spouse and minor legitimate and adopted child dependent upon the insured person and his dependent parents.
Factory ?Factory? means any premises including the precincts thereof whereon twenty or more persons are employed or were employed for wages on any day of the preceding twelve months, and in any part of which a manufacturing process is being carried on with the aid of power or is ordinarily so carried on but does not include a mine, subject to the operation of the Mines Act, 1952 or a railway running shed.
Insurable Employment ?Insurable Employment? means an employment in a factory to which this Act applies.
Insured Person ?Insured Person? means a person who is or was an employee in respect of whom contributions are or were payable under this Act and who is, by reason thereof, entitled to any of the benefits provided under this Act.
Managing Agent ?Management Agent? means any person appointed or acting as the representative of another person for the purpose of carrying on such other person?s trade or business, but does not include an individual manager subordinate to an employer.
Occupier ?Occupier? of a factory shall have the meaning assigned to it in the Factories Act, 1948.
Permanent Partial Disablement ?Permanent Partial Disablement? means such disablement of a permanent nature, as reduces the earning capacity of an employee in every employment which he was capable of undertaking at the time of accident resulting in the disablement.
Permanent Total Disablement ?Permanent Total Disablement? means such disablement of a permanent nature as incapacitates an employee for all work which he was capable of performing at the time of the accident resulting in such disablement.
Principal Employer ?Principal Employer? means: ? In a factory, the owner of the factory and includes the managing agent of such owner, the legal representative of a deceased owner, and where a person has been named as the manager of the factory under the Factories Act, 1948, the person so named; ? In any establishment under the control of any department of Government in India, the authority appointed by such Government in this behalf or where no authority is so appointed, the Head of the Department; ? In any other establishment, any person responsible for the supervision and control of the establishment.
Regulation ?Regulation? means a regulation made by the Corporation.
Schedule ?Schedule? means a Schedule of this Act.
Sickness ?Sickness? means a condition which requires medical treatment & attendance, and necessitates abstention from work on medical grounds.