October 25: The government has extended the deadline for private institutions to get enlisted in the Social Security Scheme, an ambitious project that ensures pension and other facilities to employees of the private sector after retirement.  According to the Ministry of Labour, the government decided to extend the deadline by one month after the Social Security Scheme failed to attract the private sector as per the government’s expectations.

The government had earlier set the timeframe of mid-October to get enlisted in the government’s Social Security Fund after implementing the contributions-based scheme from the current fiscal year.

Organising a press conference on Thursday (October 24), Minister for Labour, Employment and Social Security Gokarna Bista said that the government decided to extend the deadline as per the request from the private sector. He said that the decision was taken as a large number of commercial institutes are yet to get listed in the scheme and the festive season is ongoing.

According to the minister, big commercial institutes have demanded for more time to get listed in the scheme.

“We extended the deadline to facilitate those who are yet to get listed,” said the minister.

So far, only 8818 employers have been listed in the scheme while the number of contributors is 196,800. The fund has already collected Rs 76.5 million.

The Social Security Fund has forwarded its working procedure to the ministry for approval. Once it gets approved, the contributors can benefit from home and educational loans. Workers are currently benefitting from such loans from the Employee Provident Fund. Officials at the fund believe that the employee will be attracted toward this scheme once the working procedure gets approved.

The scheme offers financial security in case of health and maternity emergency, medical expenses, accidents , dependent family members and old-age allowance among others.