Navigating PF Coverage and Apprentice Training for Healthcare Assistants in Small Hospitals

Dealing with PF Coverage for Healthcare Assistants

A manpower company covered under PF supplies healthcare assistants to small hospitals that are not under the purview of PF. How should this be handled?

Hiring Apprentices for Hospital Training

The company is planning to hire apprentices on their payroll from the government and assign them to the hospital for training. Is this permissible?

Please help.

Only the principal employer, i.e., hospitals, is authorized to maintain the apprentice rules and returns (the maximum limit is 10% of the workforce). They can recruit apprentices directly or ask the contractor to provide them; the contractor cannot do it on their own.

The Apprentice Act requires the registration of the training establishment/industry. For more information, please visit the site http://portal.mhrdnats.gov.in/.

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The manpower company is responsible for PF coverage of its personnel deputed elsewhere. Merely by terming such personnel as apprentices will not yield the advantages thereof unless the necessary compliances are fulfilled, as pointed out by an HR consultant.

Manpower Supply Company Salary Management

Usually, a manpower supply company maintains salary particulars, including PF and ESI deductions, for their staff, even though they sponsor them as employees, trainees, apprentices, or contract-based employees to a contractor or a government institution.

Every month, the company obtains attendance particulars of those employees sponsored to a contractor or a government institution. It then issues each employee's pay particulars, including PF and ESI deductions and matching contributions to be paid by the company itself. This salary particulars sheet is submitted to the contractor or government institution.

Subsequently, the contractor or government institution that engages employees from the sponsoring company issues a total cheque for all sponsored employees working with it.

Upon receiving the cheque, the company pays salaries, deducting the PF and ESI contributions of each employee, and also remits matching contributions of PF and ESI for each employee. It sends a payment acknowledgment to the contractor every month.

It is important to note that even though an employee is working as a trainee or apprentice in a hospital or with the contractor to learn a skill and update their knowledge through training, they are essentially a regular employee before being sponsored to a contractor or a government institution.

Furthermore, in any case where the contractor or government institution does not pay the salaries cheque on time, delays, or refuses salaries, the company has to pay salaries to all sponsored employees without any hindrance. The company is liable to pay all dues, including PF, ESI deductions, and matching contributions without fail.