Aadhaar Info Must to Seek Social Security Code Benefits

NEW DELHI: Workers seeking benefits under the government’s new social security code will be mandated to share their Aadhaar details with the labour and employment ministry, according to new rules notified by the labour ministry on Tuesday.
Labour secretary Apurva Chandra clarified on Wednesday that while the new rules has legally empowered the ministry to collect Aadhaar details from all beneficiaries who sign up to receive services or payment through various schemes under the Social Security Code 2020, “no benefit will be denied to workers due to the absence of Aadhaar”, at least until such time that the rules under the Social Security Code are notified.

Effectively, the notification means that disbursal of social security benefits will become Aadhaar-linked once the Social Security Code, 2020 is implemented. This will have a bearing on benefits workers receive not just from the ministry of labour and employment like insurance and retirement benefits under ESIC and EPFO respectively, but also other welfare measures relating to housing, education and scholarships, among others, from other ministries.
The purpose of the ministry’s mandate, the government said, is to facilitate database creation, mainly covering informal sectors workers like migrants, who will need to share their Aadhaar details to register themselves on the National Data Base for Unorganised Workers being built by the National Informatics Centre.
“The labour ministry is now legally empowered to collect Aadhaar data for workers who get social security benefits. Once the Social Security Code becomes effective, thereafter the benefits will become Aadhaar-linked. However, no benefits will be denied to workers for the lack of Aadhaar until the Social Security Code is notified,” Chandra said.
The Social Security Code 2020 contains tenets of nine labour laws that were previously in existence including The Employee’s Compensation Act, 1923, The Employees’ State Insurance Act, 1948, The Employees’ Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952, The Payment of Gratuity Act, 1972, The Building and Other Construction Workers’ Welfare Cess Act, 1996 and The Unorganised Workers Social Security Act, 2008, among others.

Source : ToI