ESIC to Provide Secondary Medical Care and Supply of Drugs Directly in Remote Areas

ESIC to Provide Secondary Medical Care and Supply of Drugs Directly in Remote Areas

The ESI Corporation has decided to provide secondary Medical Care services directly in areas/districts where the existing ESI Hospitals are more than 25 Kms from the concentration of Insured Persons.

This was decided in the historic 150th Meeting of the ESI Corporation under the chairmanship of Shri Mallikarjun Kharge, Hon’ble Minister of Labour & Employment, Govt. of India, today at ESIC Headquarters, New Delhi. Shri Harish Rawat, Hon’ble Minister of State for Labour & Employment, Govt. of India & Vice-Chairman of ESIC and Shri Prabhat C. Chaturvedi, Secretary, Labour & Employment, Govt. of India also attended the meeting. The Hon’ble Minister also released a book on the Journey of ESI Corporation Meetings since the 01st Meeting of ESI Corporation in 1948, till date. 

Shri Kharge informed that on 6th October, 1948, the last Governor General, Sh. C. Rajagopalachari inaugurated the first meeting of the Corporation in the historic constituent assembly hall at New Delhi. The first Labour Minister of independent India, Babu Jagjivan Ram was the first Chairman of ESI Corporation and Rajkumari Amrit Kaur who was the first Health Minister of independent India was the Vice-Chairperson. Since then, the Corporation has had many eminent men & women devoted to public service as Members. 

To ensure that there is no shortage of widely used drugs & life saving drugs in the state ESI hospitals and dispensaries, the Corporation has approved a pilot project for direct procurement and supply of these drugs and dressings to the States. The entire expenditure shall be fully borne by the ESI Corporation outside the ceiling. The ESI Act has been amended and now it will be possible to utilize spare capacity of underutilized hospitals on user charges for schemes notified by the Central Government, as decided in today’s meeting. 

In this historic 150th Meeting, the Corporation has also approved for setting up of ESI Hospital at Lalru in S.A.S. Nagar, Punjab, recruitment of part time specialties/part time super specialists in state ESI Hospitals directly by ESI Corporation and bearing of expenditure fully by ESIC. 

Shri Kharge also announced that the revenue income of the Corporation is going to exceed Rs. 5000 crores in this financial year. There has also been a significant increase of 45% in the medical expenditure. Despite substantial increase in the revenue expenditure, the total surplus for 2009-10 at Rs. 2373/- crores is almost the same as that in 2008-09.