The Payment of Bonus (Amendment) Bill 2015

The Lok Sabha has passed The Payment of Bonus (Amendment) Bill, 2015 to facilitate doubling of wage ceiling for calculating bonus of factory workers and Organizations with 20 or more workers. The Bill seeks to amend the Payment of Bonus Act, 1965 and was introduced in Lok Sabha by the Minister of State (MoS) for Labour and Employment by the Minister of State for Labor and Employment, Mr. Bandaru Dattatreya, on December 7, 2015. The bill will have retrospective effect and will come into force on 1 April 2015.

Eligibility Criterion for availing bonus: The Act mandates payment of bonus to employees’ whose salary or wage is up to Rs 10,000 per month. The Bill seeks to increase this eligibility limit to Rs 21,000 per month Calculation ceiling limit has increased to Rs 7,000 per month from the existing Rs 3,500. Mandatory prior publication of rules made by the Union Government in the Official Gazette to allow for more public consultation.

Furthermore, The Government has devised amendments in the ESI coverage of employees and has decided to increase the salary limit for coverage of ESI from Rs 15000 to Rs 25000, for which effective dates will be soon negotiated. Also, amendments made in the EPF plans as well. It goes as follows: if details such as Aadhaar and bank account number are linked to your Universal Account Number (UAN) and know-your-customer (KYC) verification is done by the employer, then an employee can directly approach EPFO for withdrawal using UAN (this is a unified EPF account under which you can park all your EPF money even when you change jobs, thereby ensuring portability of EPF money from one organization to another). The government had launched UAN last year and all active EPF subscribers have been allotted this number.

The employer verifies the KYC details through a digital signature, but for withdrawal, you need to seed this number with Aadhaar and bank account number. Owing to the changing government policies, Farsight Solutions offers the clients to rightfully upgrade their existing statuary solutions to align with the new government strategies and norms or to invest in a wide variety of tools that will streamline company’s policies with the norms devised by the government. Farsight’s Tool ensures accurate calculation of payroll and HR Management under the government specified guidelines. Thus it is an effective, fully automated tool that helps the organization to be updated with the technology with respect to government policies..