The Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, on 12th of November, 2020, in a press conference, announced the Atmanirbhar Bharat Rozgar Yojana with the objective of surviving the COVID-19 outbreak. The highlights are as follows:

  1. For boosting the employment generation in formal sectors post lockdown, the government has introduced Atmanirbhar Bharat Rozgar Yojana.
  2. Every registered establishment under the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation is eligible under the scheme, that brings in new employees in its establishment or employees who have lost their jobs between March to September and have rejoined work, will be eligible for a subsidy of 24% or 12% each of the employees’ and employers contribution.
  3. The benefit under the scheme is for a period of two years for new candidates who enroll between October 1, 2020, till June 30, 2021.
  4. For establishments with less than 50 employees, they must recruit at least two new employees and for establishments with more than 50 employees, they must recruit at least five new employees in their establishments.
  5. The base month to be considered for the scheme is September 2020.
  6. For organizations having up to 1000 employees and registered under EPFO and who earn up to Rs 15,000/-  per month, the contribution by employer and employee (12% each) amounting to 24% will be borne by the central government for a period of two years.
  7. The subsidies will be directly credited to the EPFO accounts linked with Aadhaar of eligible employees.
  8. The government have announced an additional fund of Rs 10,000 crores for the unorganized sector to boost the employment opportunities under Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyan as well as under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme.
  9. The package is worth Rs 2.65 lakh crores, as part of Atmanirbhar Bharat 3.0.
  10. The Centre and Reserve Bank of India (RBI) have provided a total fiscal stimulus of Rs 29.87 lakh crore since the COVID-19 pandemic began, which amounts to 15% of GDP.

We hope and wish that our economy recovers well and thank our FM for the efforts that the government is putting in to make us stand again.