Kharge seeks 30 acres land for medical college

Review of PF interest rate is on cards

  The medical college will be exclusively for the wards of workers and employees who are the subscribers of Employees State Insurance.

Addressing his maiden press conference here he said that two teams of his ministry have already visited Gulbarga to hold discussions with the district authorities on the availability of land and other infrastructure. The ministry has sought 30 acres of land for medical college and hospital.

Kharge said that a super speciality ESIC hospital was also being constructed in Bangalore at a cost of Rs 100 cr.

Review of PF interest

He said that he would soon convene a meeting of Board of directors of the Employees Provident Funds to review the interest rate. ``At present even during the days of global recession we are offering the highest interest of 8.5 per cent. If any institution is offering more than this we will certainly consider the possibility of enhancing the interest rate’’ Kharge said replying to a demand on the need for enhancing the interest rate.

While ruling out the possibility of investing the PF funds in shares and stocks Kharge said that the government has to think twice before investing the funds of workers in the volatile share market. He allayed all fears and apprehensions about the safety and security of the PF money.

He said he would soon convene a meeting of labour ministers of all the states to push through the labour reforms and to step up the efforts to cover maximum number of labour families under the Swasth Bima Yojana which provides free health insurance coverage for a labour family up to Rs 30,000 a year.

Meeting to be held today

As a prelude to the labour ministers’ conference he has convened a meeting of state labour secretaries on June 21 in New Delhi to implement a number of labour welfare programmes. The labour ministers conference will be held in about a fortnight and it will particularly focus on the welfare of the labourers in the unorganised sectors. It will also explore the possibility of extending the benefits meant for unorganised workers to the labourers employed under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme.