Smart card for industries mooted

 
At an interactive session organised by Bangalore Chamber of Industry and Commerce (BCIC) here on Thursday, Department of Labour Secretary Ramesh Zalki, said the smart card would allow industries to apply for registration and obtain licences online and returns filed with various departments.

Explaining the idea, Directorate of Factories and Boilers Director, H Srinivasaiah said said procedures like registration and transfer of licences could be done online. Each department involved would have its own security system for the card and the department’s data cannot be accessed by other departments, he stressed. The project is likely to be tested in six-month time and authorities are hoping to enroll at least 500 companies for the initial testing of the card.

PF contribution

International workers, defined as people without Indian passports and working in India, will now need to contribute to the Employees Provident Fund. About 230 people have already enrolled with the Employee Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) to make these contributions. Regional Provident Fund Commissioner-1, Jayaprakash Narayanan said that many international workers might end up making double payments intially, one in India and another in their home country. “But these payments are intended to compel their countries to enter into agreements with India,” he said. India has already entered into agreements with Belgium and Germany. In return, Indians who are working in those countries for a certain period of time, need not make payments to their social security system and instead make contributions to PF here in India.

Outsourcing work

Reacting to complaints from the industry about not receiving receipts for EPFO remittance for the last two years, the Labour Secretary and the Regional Commissioner said that they were looking at outsourcing data entry work. They were lagging in issuing receipts from 2006-09 as staff shortage had not allowed data updation.