The Employees' State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) scheme provides medical and cash benefits to insured employees and their dependents in events of sickness, disability or death. The scheme which was earlier limited to organised sector workers now covers unorganised workers, gig workers and platform workers under Section 45 of the Code on Social Security, 2020. The scheme comes with a Rs 21,000 wage ceiling (Rs 25,000 for persons with disability), up to which, employees can join it. The Ministry of Labour and Employment that runs the scheme was asked if it has a plan to increase the ESIC wage ceiling from Rs 21,000? Will government increase the ESIC wage ceiling of Rs 21,000? NK Premachandran, member of Parliament, asked in Lok Sabha on July 27, 2026, whether the government has any plans to increase the wage ceiling of the ESIC scheme? The MP also asked if the government proposes to extend the ESIC scheme coverage to more sectors, and if the government also proposes to relax the attendance, restrictions imposed for super specialty treatment of seasonal workers including cashew workers? Reply to Premachandran’s queries, Shobha Karandlaje, Minister of State for Labour and Employment, said that the government increase the ESIC wage ceiling periodically, but she didn’t announce any proposal or timeline to increase it. Karandlaje said that the revision of wage ceiling is undertaken periodically from time to time, and the last revision was done with effect from January 1, 2017, wherein the wage limit was raised from Rs 15,000 per month to Rs 21,000 (Rs 25,000 for persons with disability). Has the government proposed to extend the ESIC scheme coverage to more sectors? Replying to the query whether the government has proposed extending scheme benefits to employees from more sectors, Karandlaje says the Employees’ Sate Insurance Act, 1948, has now been subsumed in Code on Social Security, 2020, which has been implemented w.e.f. November 21, 2025. Under Section 2(29) of the Code on Social Security, 2020, an 'establishment' broadly covers places where industrial, commercial or other specified economic activities are carried on. "It includes factories, motor transport undertakings, newspaper establishments, audio-visual production units, construction establishments, plantations, mines, ports and areas where dock work is undertaken," says Karandlaje. ESIC now covers unoragnised sector employees, gig workers Karandlaje says moreover, Section 45 of the Code on Social Security, 2020, empowers the central government to frame the scheme for providing the benefits of the ESIC to unorganised workers, gig workers and platform workers. Has government proposed to relax attendance, restrictions imposed for super specialty treatment of seasonal workers? Karandlaje says at present, there is no such provision under the ESIC scheme to relax the attendance, restrictions imposed for super specialty treatment of seasonal factory workers being outside the coverage of the ESIC.