News Excerpt: 

The Centre government is working to extend the deadline for unorganised sector workers to claim life and accident insurance cover under Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana (PMSBY).

More about News:

• The Centre is working to extend the deadline for unorganised sector workers to claim life and accident insurance cover under Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana (PMSBY), 
• The labour ministry had started a facility that allowed unorganised workers registered on the social security portal e-Shram  between the inception of the database in August 2021 and March 2022 to file claims and avail insurance cover. 
• Only incidents that occurred after registration on e-Shram in August 2021 and before March 2022 were to be considered for availing the payout. 
• The deadline to file claims under the facility expired last month. 
• Under the facility, an online ex-gratia module was developed under e-Shram portal to provide benefits in the form of  ex-gratia of Rs 200,000 for death or severe accident and Rs 100,000 for accident. 
• The claim can be initiated by the registered worker himself in case of disability and only legal heirs of the registered workers can initiate the claim in case of death.  
• The government is also working on a slew of measures to provide benefits to the millions of unorganised sector workers registered on e-Shram, like integrating different portals. 

Challenges:

• A large number of states are yet to appoint nodal officers that have to accept and process these claims. 
• Also, the number of claims filed under the facility have been quite low across the 
• Country.
• Between August 2021 and March 2022, close to 270 million workers had registered on the portal.
• Given that a lot of people are still unaware of the facility.
• The government is considering extending the deadline for the facility so that the people who faced hardships during the Covid period can get some relief.