EFBS a boon for families of deceased employees & those permanently disabled

Central Chronicle News
Bhilai, Jul 15: Steel Authority of India Ltd has always been regarded as an organisation that goes out of the way to care for its employees. In fact social security for the benefit of its employee welfare has always been on top in the agenda of SAIL and its steel plants and units. Thirty two years back, when SAIL introduced what is known as Employee Family Benefit Scheme or EFBS, it was the first such organisation in the country to have such a scheme.
SAIL’s EFBS scheme that provided financial independence to families of employees who have died during their service period and such employees declared medically unfit because of permanent disablement was much appreciated and many other organisations followed and introduced this scheme with modifications that suited their organisation.
As per the scheme, the family of deceased employee or employee declared medically unfit because of permanent disablement continues to get the last basic pay and DA drawn by employee every month till the date of his or her retirement. To avail of this scheme, the CPF and Gratuity amount has to be deposited with the organisation i.e. SAIL or BSP or any other Plant/unit of SAIL.
The same is then returned to the family after the date of retirement of employee. As such, the family of deceased employee or employee with permanent disablement continues to maintain the same standard of living and social status. The scheme has enabled such families to educate their children and take care of other family responsibilities. Any family willing to benefit from this scheme has to apply within six months from the date on death or disablement of employee.
As many as 3301 families of Bhilai Steel Plant’s employees have so far benefitted from this scheme. This includes families of 30 employees who died from COVID 19. One such beneficiary of EFBS is the Malhotra family. Expressing gratitude, all members of this family said that BSP has extended all help possible after the death of Sanjay Malhotra in 2015. Says his wife, I gave my consent to avail of this EFBS scheme after my husband’s death and since then BSP has been paying my husband’s last Basic pay and DA every month. This has provided me financial independence and has also enabled me to fulfil me and my late husband’s dream of both our daughters, Harsha and Disha becoming engineer and doctor.
“Today, I have been able to fulfil this dream with the support from BSP. One of my daughters is already a doctor and the other who is already an engineer has completed her masters in business administration,” she said. This scheme has not only kept my family together, it has enabled us to maintain our lifestyle and social status, she added. I will continue to get the amount every month till his date of retirement and then also get back the CPF and Gratuity amount. Thanking SAIL-BSP, Mrs Malhotra said that an added benefit has been that I still continue to get medical services.
Besides social security, SAIL-BSP has always been sensitive as regards providing other benefits to employees and their families, the latest example being providing medical services to entitled family members of employees who died because of COVID.