AP to monitor worker insurance plans through call centres

VIJAYAWADA: Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu directed the Labour Department to set up a call centre to monitor and ensure effective implementation of insurance benefits for workers in the unorganised sector under different social security schemes.

"Set up a call centre that will monitor the penetration and seek or verify data of families. The Labour Department also has been asked to create a wing exclusively to monitor the schemes," he said. Naidu, who has been functioning from the capital region of Vijayawada of late, was presiding over a review meeting of Labour Department.

The call centre will be connected with a control room which would continuously take remedial steps as soon as it receives complaints or grievances from beneficiaries of the schemes, a government release said. Naidu suggested that once the proposed call centre collects relevant data, scholarships can be offered to children of drivers under an insurance plan launched for them.

Of the total two crore workers in the unorganised sector in the state, data of 71.6 per cent of them has been registered under the Unorganised Workers Social Security Scheme launched by the chief minister in May this year, the release said. Expressing dissatisfaction over the penetration of insurance in the last four months, Naidu said the time taken for settlement of claims needs to be expedited.

Naidu asked officials to see that insurance cover of Rs 1.5 lakh and Rs 3 lakh is provided to workers for natural death and accidental death, respectively, by integrating the state scheme with National Family Benefit Scheme of the Centre, the release said. He asked the department to come up with an action plan on housing and skill upgradation programmes for workers in the organised and unorganised sectors, it added.