Kathmandu, March 15

The government has temporarily halted the verification process of enterprises that are registering themselves under the Social Security Fund (SSF). The SSF has said that it halted the verification process since February 22.

Shyamraj Adhikari, executive director of SSF, said that the verification process had been halted as the Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Security has not approved the fund’s proposal to extend the time to verify the details of the companies that are registering themselves at the SSF.

“We had forwarded the proposal to the ministry on February 21 but it has yet to approve it,” said Adhikari.

However, he said that the online registration process has not been halted and only the certificate distribution process has been stopped.

Private firms have gradually started participating in the contribution-based Social Security Scheme unveiled by the government in November last year for formal sector workers. The government has plans to address the non-formal sector workers in the near future.

According to Adhikari, the SSF is doing its best to make the scheme a success and has been holding regular consultations with both employers and employees for the purpose.

As per SSF, 2,200 firms have registered their details at the fund till today while other firms have been registering themselves every day via the fund’s website.

Under this scheme, firms from Province 3 must register themselves at SSF within mid-March while they need to register the details of their workers by mid-June. As per Adhikari, the SSF will start collecting monthly instalments from May 22, which means companies based in Province 3 need to submit their employees’ data before the said date.

“About 10-20 business firms are registering themselves online at the SSF every day and we have called on all the business firms to submit their employee details as soon as possible,” Adhikari informed.

According to him, most of the companies that are registering their details at SSF are liquor companies, hydropower firms, banks and financial institutions and different corporate houses, among others.

According to the Office of the Company Registrar (OCR), there are 192,000 formal sector firms that are registered at the office.

As per the Central Bureau of Statistics, over 700,000 formal sector private firms including the ones that are registered at the OCR are registered at the District Administration Offices of Kathmandu, Bhaktapur and Lalitpur.