Safe in India Foundation Quarterly Update Jun18: Launch of Worker Hitlaabh (Benefit) Diary and the f
Dear Supporters of Safe-in-India
We are pleased to report our seventh quarterly update for Apr-Jun18.
Another gratifying quarter when we continued growing our ESIC activities, helped another 150+ injured workers, obtained another Rs 1.1 crore compensation for them AND started our safety initiative with the recruitment of Chitra Khanna, a highly experienced social sector executive. The highlight of the quarter was the launch of Safe in India Sharmik Hitlaabh (Benefit) Diary, which will help injured workers keep track of their benefits and health/compensation process with ESIC. We expect more than 100,000 of these Diaries in use within the next three years across India. The launch was done at our first ever Shramik Sammelan, where more than a hundred injured workers, who we have helped, came together to share their experiences, encourage each other in forming a supportive community and interact with Contractors and Gram Sarpanch (Village Head).
See Video of the Launch event here, made by our young volunteers.
ESIC Pillar Performance:
Assisted another 154 injured workers with their healthcare, of which 44% asked for compensation assistance, reflecting our continued credibility among workers.
Obtained 50 new compensations amounting to Rs 1.1 crore (delays in ESIC; we are pushing to accelerate). We have a pipeline of Rs 3 crores compensations that we are pursuing.
We started an experimental coverage of neighbouring auto-sector belts in Faridabad and Bhiwari.
Safety Pillar Performance:
As planned, we recruited our Head of Safety Initiative in Jun18. Chitra Khanna, with 25+ years of corporate and NGO experience, will head this pillar of activity. To start this initiative, we will use 30,000+ accidents related data-points collected to show-case the need for safety to auto-brands.
Impact Report
We have now helped 1300+ injured workers with healthcare and obtained compensations in excess of Rs 4 crore within 18 months of Centre operations.
Our Monthly Impact Report until June18 is here.
ESIC and Safety Systemic Change
Our meeting with the Labour Minister in Feb18 and subsequent meetings with DG ESIC are expected to result in the creation of a senior working group to systematically improve ESIC services and industrial safety. This, if successful, will increase our impact from thousands to millions of workers across the country. Furthermore, we have had encouraging discussions with DG Fasli (Factory Advice Service and Labour Institutes) to improve safety in this supply chain. We hope to report on definitive actions in coming quarters.
We discussed our tactical process recommendation Gurgaon-Manesar ESIC of the past 15 months with the new Director and are pleased to see signs of progress: (a) One of the Gurgaon branch offices finally have staff name tags, which are needed for workers to evidence their interactions (b) ESIC has asked us to report specific cases of their staff not issuing acknowledgments for documents to workers, (c) In June, ESIC Medical Board cleared 38 files, highest we have seen in our 18 months tracking (usually 20-22 files a month).
Infrastructure
Our operating system is under production and as planned it should go live in 2Q18-19.
Worker Testimonials:
Here is a video story of Dev Sharma, a 35 years old worker, who lost his right hand index finger on a filter paper machine.
“I did not know anything about Accident Form and other documents. I am thankful to team Safe in India. If they weren’t there, my work would not have been done”: Ram Prakash, 31, lost two fingers in Power Press and has finally started receiving his pension two years after the accident.
“Time to time I got correct and accurate information from Safe In India Centre, due to which my work in ESIC has been done quite easily”: Neeraj Yadav, 29, lost Index Finger in Power Press and has also now started receiving his pension 14 months after his accident.
Help us do more:
Thank you again from the Safe-in-India team and we look forward to your continued support.
We are now raising funding for FY2018-19 and would appreciate your donations. Click here for donation information and confirm your donation at team@safeinindia.org. Our last set of audited financials are here.
Should you have any questions or suggestion, please write to team@safeinindia.org.
Stay Safe!
The Safe-in-India team