Prime Minister Narendra Modi chaired an important meeting to discuss and deliberate on steps which can be taken to support children who have lost their parents due to Covid-19.
The PM said, all children who have lost both parents or surviving parent or legal guardian/adoptive parents due to Covid 19 will be supported under ‘PM-CARES for Children’ scheme.
PM CARES For Children scheme has been launched for support & empowerment of Covid affected children.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a number of benefits to children impacted by the current COVID Pandemic.
Key Points of Benefits Announced:
1. Fixed Deposit in the name of the child:
PM CARES will contribute through a specially designed scheme to create a corpus of Rs 10 lakh for each child when he or she reaches 18 years of age.
This corpus:
- It will be used to give a monthly financial support/ stipend from 18 years of age, for the next five years to take care of his or her personal requirements during the period of higher education.
- On reaching the age of 23 years, he or she will get the corpus amount as one lump-sum for personal and professional use.
2. School Education: For children under 10 years
- The child will be admitted as a day scholar in the nearest Kendriya Vidyalaya or private school.
- If the child is admitted in a private school, then the fees will be given from PM Cares as per the rules of RTE.
- PM Cares will also pay for the expenditure on uniforms, textbooks and notebooks.
3. School Education: for children between 11-18 years:
- The child will be admitted to any residential school of the Central Government such as Sainik School, Navodaya Vidyalaya etc.
- In case the child is to be continued under the care of Guardian/ grandparents/ extended family, then he/she will be admitted in the nearest Kendriya Vidyalaya or private school as a day scholar.
- If the child is admitted in a private school, then the fees will be given from PM Cares as per the rules of RTE.
- PM Cares will also pay for the expenditure on uniforms, textbooks and notebooks.
4. Support for Higher Education:
- The child will be assisted in getting education loan for Professional courses/Higher Education in India as per the existing education loan norms. The interest on this loan will be paid by the PM CARES.
- As an alternative, scholarship equivalent to the tuition fees / course fees for undergraduate/ vocational courses as per Government norms will be provided to such children under Central or State Government Schemes. For children who are not eligible under the existing scholarship schemes, PM CARES will provide an equivalent scholarship.
5. Health Insurance
- All children will be enrolled as a beneficiary under Ayushman Bharat Scheme (PM-JAY) with a health insurance cover of Rs 5 lakhs.
- The premium amount for these children till the age of 18 years will be paid by PM CARES.
In addition to the measures announced under PM CARES for Children- Empowerment of Covid affected children, Government of India has announced further measures to help families who have lost the earning member due to Covid.
Government will provide pension to families of those who died due to Covid under Employees State Insurance Corporation. They will also provide an enhanced & liberalised insurance compensation under the EDLI scheme.
1. Family Pension under Employees State Insurance Corporation (ESIC):
- To help family, benefit of ESIC pension scheme for employment related death cases is being extended to even those who have died due to Covid. Dependent family members of such persons will be entitled to the benefit of pension equivalent to 90% of average daily wage drawn by the worker as per the existing norms.
2. Employees Provident Fund Organization- Employees’ Deposit Linked Insurance Scheme (EDLI):
- The insurance benefits under the EDLI scheme have been enhanced and liberalized.
- Amount of maximum insurance benefit has been increased from ₹ 6 lakh to ₹ 7 lakh.
- The provision of minimum insurance benefit of ₹ 2.5 lakh has been restored and will apply retrospectively from 15th February 2020 for the next three years.