Aatmanirbhar Bharat Rozgar Yojana (ABRY) is the scheme proposed to incentivize employers who are registered with EPFO for generating new employment and re-employing persons from low wage (Gross < 15,000/-) bracket who were lost their jobs during Covid-19 Pandemic from Mar'2020 to September'2020.
The Central Government will pay both the employees’ and employer’s share of contribution payable under the EPF & MP Act, 1952 or only the employees’ share, depending on the employment strength of the establishment, directly to the Universal Account Number of eligible employee maintained by the EPFO.
The scheme commence from 1st October 2020 and shall remain open for registration of eligible employees up to 30th June 2021. The benefits will be available for the period of 24 months from the date of registration of new employee, which not later than 30th June 2023.
Ex: If an employee is registered on Oct'2020 then the benefit can be availed till Oct'2022 (24 Months only) not up to June'2023.
The definition of "New Employment" refers in this scheme is "who was not working in any establishment and did not have UAN prior to 1st Oct 2020, typically it should be first employment".
The definition of "Re-employment" refers in this scheme is "any member having UAN account but lost the job due to pandemic between 01st March 2020 to 30th September 2020 in any establishment and joining the same or different establishment after 1st October 2020.
Basic Condition to avail ABRY Benefit by the employer:
Establishment already registered before the commencement of this scheme shall have to employ, over and above the reference employee base, minimum two employees if the actual employee count is less than 50 or five employees if the referred employee count is greater than 50.
Establishment already registered with EPFO should maintain the same reference of employment count, addition of employees are allowed without any condition however the employment count should not below the reference employee count of entering in to the scheme.
Ex: If an establishment entered in to this scheme on Oct'2020 with the existing employee count of 100, they need to add 5 new joinees / re-joining employees as mandatory to claim the benefit for joiners however the employee count in Nov'2020 should not be lesser than 100 (reference employee count in Oct), then they are not entitled to claim the benefit for particular month though the addition is happened but actual employee count is lesser than reference employee count due to exits.
For new establishment getting registered with EPFO between 01.10.2020 to 30.06.2021, the reference base of employees shall be treated as zero. If any such establishment registers voluntarily with less than 20 employees and continues to maintain less than 20 employees during the validity period of this Scheme, such establishment will not be allowed to exit from statutory Schemes under EPF & MP Act, 1952 and beneficiaries who received benefit shall not be allowed to make final withdrawals until expiry of a period of two years after validity period of this Scheme.
Eligibility criteria for Employees:
* New employee has to be registered for this Scheme during the period from 01.10.2020 to 30.06.2021 by employer of eligible establishment.
* The new employee should have Aadhaar seeded Universal Account Number.
* The benefit under this scheme shall be paid for the wage months in which he continues to be in employment in any eligible establishment subject to a period of maximum 24 months from date of registration as new employee.
* Any eligible new employee under this Scheme shall become ineligible if his/her monthly wage exceeds 14999/- at any point of time during this scheme period.
* Any new employee is already a registered beneficiary and his/her employer is eligible to or is availing benefits of payment of employer’s share by Central Government under PMRPY/PMPRPY 2016, no such benefit in respect of such new employee shall be available under this Scheme.
Eligibility Criteria for Employers:
* For Establishments employing up to and including One Thousand (1000) employees (contributing EPF members with UAN) in wage month September, 2020, the employer’s and employee’s share of contribution as per statutory rate applicable to establishment subject to maximum of 24% of wages. These establishments will however continue to get subsidy of employer’s share even if the number of contributing EPF members with UAN exceeds 1000 during the scheme period.
* For Establishments employing more than One Thousand (1000) employees (contributing EPF members with UAN) in wage month September, 2020, employees’ share of contribution as per statutory rate applicable to establishment subject to maximum of 12% of wages.
Employer has to submit a declaration / Certificate accepting all the terms & conditions to follow legibly without deviating / over-looking the process to claim benefits unlawful.
Monitoring Mechanism:
EPFO shall put in place a robust mechanism to monitor the implementation of this Scheme on a weekly basis.
EPFO shall provide monthly reports to the Ministry of Labour & Employment (Directorate General of Employment), Government of India for effective monitoring of this Scheme.
Third Party evaluation:
EPFO shall undertake Third Party Evaluation of the Scheme within a period of three months from the closure of this Scheme and send a report to the DGE, Ministry of Labour & Employment, Government of India.
The expenditure incurred towards evaluation of the Scheme shall be borne by the EPFO out of its own resources.
This is a great scheme which can be utilized appropriately by Small / Mid-size organization to save 24% of PF remittance cost for 2 years.
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A welcome feature. Very good scheme.
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