The firm was selected through a competitive bidding opened to public last June in which two other companies had taken part.[break]
“The preferred bidder has agreed to complete the entire task within next four months at a cost of around Rs 3.5 million,” Kebal Prasad Bhandari, director general of the Department of Labor, told Republica, adding a team has already started conducting preliminary study in this regard.
As per the agreement, Peace and Development Studies will design social security schemes on workplace accident, and maternity and medical benefits. Once these schemes are launched, workers who fall sick, get pregnant and fall into accident at workplaces will get certain compensation to ensure their financial positions are not weakened by huge hospital bills.
Currently, the Social Security Fund is planning to extend compensation to workers based on social security cards distributed to them. These cards will be issued on the basis of national identity cards to control problems related to fake claims.
“In this regard, the selected firm will be responsible for fixing premium rates for different schemes and coming up with implementation plans,” Bhandari said. “The firm will also be responsible for laying suggestions on core IT system and software that are needed to roll out three schemes throughout the country.”
As of now, the Fund has been slapping one percent payroll tax on basic salaries of formal sector workers to raise the amount to launch social security schemes. So far, it has collected an estimated Rs 2.53 billion through this measure.
Once the schemes are launched, the Fund is planning to ask employees and employers to contribute 10 percent of workers´ basic salary each to operate social security schemes.
By channeling these funds, the Social Security Fund is ultimately planning to roll out nine social security schemes including, unemployment, workplace accident, health, disability, maternity, family insurance, medical, dependent and old-age benefits.
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