Awareness and Use of Employees’ State Insurance Services in Dharmadam Panchayat, Kerala

Rashida K. N.

Assistant Professor (On Contract)

Department of Library and Information Science

Kannur University, Thalassery Campus

Thalasssery-670661, Kerala

rashidakn@gmail.com

 

Abstract

The paper discusses the level of awareness and use of Employees’ State Insurance (ESI) services among the industrial workers .The study also identifies the source of information about the ESI services and its barriers for accessing them. The author conducted a survey method by using a semi structured questionnaires. There are seven industries registered in the ESI schemes at Dharmadam Panchayat. The Data was collected only from Dharmadam workers. They are very few in number hence the investigator has not used any sampling technique; the whole population was taken for this study. The study found that all workers are aware and majority is utilizing the benefits of ESI services. It was also found that interpersonal communication is the main source of information about ESI scheme for workers. The results also reveals that a large majority of workers feels that bottlenecks in procedure and lack of medical facility as the main barrier in getting services from ESI dispensary. Suggestions are also made for the improvement of use of ESI schemes.