BHUBANESWAR/ROURKELA: The Employees’ State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) has approved the establishment of a Sub-Regional Office (SRO) in Jharsuguda and the construction of a 50-bed hospital at Duburi in Jajpur district.
The decision was taken at the 186th meeting of the ESIC held under the chairmanship of Union Minister of Labour and Employment Bhupender Yadav in New Delhi on Saturday. The corporation has approved the acquisition of five acres of land at Duburi for the construction of a 50-bed ESIC hospital which will be expanded to 100 beds in the future.
Regional Director, ESIC Partha Sarathi Panda told TNIE that process has been initiated to acquire the land earmarked for the hospital from the State government. He said the existing ESIC complex at Jharsuguda has a branch office, 32 staff quarters and one dispensary.
The SRO, likely to start functioning within the next six months, will cater to western Odisha districts and all the branch offices of the region will be under its fold. “Employees and employers from these districts need not come to Bhubaneswar as all services of the regional office would be available at the SRO,” he said, adding initially a few staff from the regional office would have to be diverted to the SRO.
ESIC sources informed that the nod for setting up of the SRO at Jharsuguda is a significant development for Odisha as most other states already have two to five SROs. Odisha has around 7.8 lakh insured persons and the proposed SRO is expected to take care of around 2.5 lakh of them.
Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan had sought Yadav’s intervention for setting up the ESIC sub-regional office at Jharsuguda in September. Sources said the Odisha office of ESIC has also proposed a 100-bed hospital at Jharsuguda and once it receives consent from the State government, it would be placed before the ESIC headquarters for final approval. Any district having over 50,000 insured persons is eligible for a 100-bed hospital.
The Union Labour Minister and Chairman, ESIC announced the formation of three high-powered committees to improve and strengthen service delivery mechanism. The three committees will comprise members representing employees, employers, State governments and ESIC.