Why Section 142 of the Social Security Code in news?

 The Ministry of Labour and Employment has  recently notified Section 142 of the Social Security Code, 2020.

 The Section deals with applicability of the Aadhhar.

Why was Section 142 notified?

-The notification will enable the Ministry of Labour and Employment to collect Aadhaar details from the beneficiaries of various social security schemes.

-This includes migrant workers as well.

What is the need of Aadhaar details for Social Security Code?

-The National Informatics Centre is creating a National Database for unorganised workers.

-This portal aims to collect data of migrant workers as well.

-This data of migrant workers will be used by various schemes of the Government.

-An inter-state migrant worker can register himself on the portal by submitting Aadhaar alone.

What is Section 142?

Section 142 says that Aadhaar details are compulsory for an employee or unorganised person or any other person to get benefits of government schemes.

The benefits can be in kind of cash for medical sickness, availing services of career centre, maternity benefits, receiving payment as insured person, etc.

What is Social Security Code?

-The Social Security Code was introduced in 2019.

-The main objectives of the code was to club the existing laws.

-It introduced universal social security for unorganised workers and also health and insurance benefits for gig workers.

-It merged eights existing laws. This included Maternity Benefit Act, 1961, Employment Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952, Employees State Insurance Act, 1948, Compensation Act, 1923.

-It also established a social security fund and also tapped the corporate social responsibility fund to offer medical, disability and pension benefits to the unorganised sector workers.

What is Aadhar?

-Aadhaar is a 12-digit unique identity number that can be obtained voluntarily by residents or passport holders of India, based on their biometric and demographic data.

The data is collected by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), a statutory authority established in January 2009 by the government of India, under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, following the provisions of the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and other Subsidies, benefits and services) Act, 2016.

What is National Informatics Centre?

-The National Informatics Centre (NIC) is an attached office under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) in the Indian government.

- The NIC provides infrastructure to help support the delivery of government IT services and the delivery of some of the initiatives of Digital India .

-NIC maintains the National Portal of India.

- National Portal of India is a single point to access the information and services of the Government of India.