Budget 2024: Government's job creation scheme likely to be extended

Budget 2024: The government is likely to extend the Aatmanirbhar Bharat Rozgar Yojana (ABRY) scheme in the interim Budget that will be presented on Feb 1, reported the Economic Times. The extension to the scheme will encourage the companies to create jobs by subsidising provident fund contributions.

Aatmanirbhar Bharat Rozgar Yojana

The Economic Times quoted a government official and said that the government is actively considering to extend the scheme beyond March 31, 2024. The report further mentions that more than half of the allocated Rs 22,810 crore remain unspent under the scheme.

Also Read: Nirmala Sitharaman to present the Budget for 6th time in a row after Morarji Desai

The scheme was launched in 2020 amid the Covid-19 pandemic and was to conclude this March. As per The Economic Times, industry has also urged the government to extend the scheme.

"The scheme has helped create new jobs as well as reemploy those who had lost their jobs during the pandemic," an industry representative told the publication. "However, since the balance sheet continues to be under stress, especially for some labour-intensive sectors, it is desirable that the government extend the scheme some more years to part-share the burden of enterprises," the person added.

Under the scheme, the government committed to reimburse contributions of 12% each by employers and employees towards provident fund and pension contribution for workers with wages up to ₹ 15,000, for a period of two years, and just the employees' contribution of 12% in case of establishments with more than 1,000 workers.

As per the labour ministry data updated on its website, till December 5, 2023, the government had reimbursed ₹10,043.02 crore as its share of provident fund and pension contribution for 6.04 million formal sector employees enrolled with the EPFO in 2020 for the period till March 31, 2022, benefiting 0.15 million establishments.

The Economic Times quoted CII national committee on industrial relations' member P Padmakumar and said that the Confederation of Indian Industry in its interim budget suggestion has included extension of the scheme to more establishments and contractors, and sought clarity on establishments that have multiple Employees' Provident Fund code numbers for different regions but remitting the contribution as a single entity.