Domestic aides, daily wagers to register for EOBI’

KARACHI: Domestic aides and daily wage workers would soon be able to get registered with the Employees Old-age Benefit Institution (EOBI) to avail the compulsory social insurance, not just for themselves but for their survivors too.
This was stated by EOBI Chairman Zafar Iqbal Gondal on Tuesday, while addressing a reception hosted by the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER) for EOBI trainees at the PILER Centre.
He said the workers can get registered with EOBI by a self registration process, adding his organisation would soon start it for all workers, as committed by the government in the Labour Policy announced on May Day 2010.“It is very easy and now any cook, house worker or any labourer can walk into a designated branch of the bank along with their identity card, and get themselves registered,” said Gondal.
He pointed out that his organisation has also started registration of the business establishments, whose workers are not registered. For example, he said until last year, only eight brick kilns were registered, but now their number has increased to 60.Similarly, he said thousands of CNG stations were working across the country, but only a small number of their employees were registered. The EOBI chairman admitted that his organisation has yet not succeeded in timely issuance of cards to all the new registered workers.
“It is also correct that many employers underpay contribution while majority remains uncovered. Similarly, a large majority of the power looms and mining sectors workers also remain unregistered,” he said, stating instances where workers were registered on the basis of lists provided by trade unions.
He pledged all registered workers would be provided EOBI cards at their residential addresses, which he said was a revision of the earlier policy, in which employers were provided the social security card that was often not passed on to the employees.
PILER Executive Director Karamat Ali said under the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention 102 it is the state’s responsibility to provide social security to all citizens. “Unfortunately in Pakistan, only a small number of workers are covered under the social security schemes, while around 92 percent are employed in the informal sector, where they do not have even basic labour rights,” he added.
Ali said under the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Convention, SAARC workers would have portable social security rights by 2015, “However, in Pakistan no serious measures have been taken to implement this decision.”
senior trade union leader Farid Awan, Muttahida Labour Federation Secretary General Qamoos Gul Khattak, Zeenat Hisam and others also spoke on the occasion.
It is pertinent to mention here that the EOB Act 1976 was enforced with effect from April 01, the same year to achieve compulsory social insurance, which is ensured in Article 38 (C) of the Constitution of Pakistan. The EOBI provides old-age pension (post retirement), invalidity pension (in case of permanent disability), old-age grant (after an insured person attains superannuation age, but does not posses the minimum threshold for pension), and survivor’s pension (in case an insured person is expired) to all employees. amar guriro