Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Bandaru Dattatreya has said the beedi workers are being given vocational training for alternate jobs in other sectors.

This follows the closure of beedi manufacturing units. Answering supplementaries in Lok Sabha today, he said, his ministry has enhanced the stipend for the wards of beedi workers to ten thousand rupees per annum for their ITI training.

Mr Dattatreya informed the House that beedi workers are covered under the group insurance scheme. He said, they also get financial assistance of ten thousand rupees each from Life Insurance Corportion of India in case of natural death and twenty five thousand rupees in case of accidental death.