New Delhi, Feb. 24 -- The government has eased norms to allow children of eligible unorganised workers to avail of both welfare-based and merit-based scholarships and rules are being amended to give effect to the changes aligned with the Social Security Code 2020, Union labour minister Mansukh Mandaviya said on Monday. The changes will allow students receiving the ministry's scholarship under the education component of the labour welfare scheme to also receive other merit-based scholarships offered by the central or state governments, as per their qualifying benchmarks, according to the minister. "This amendment to the welfare scheme is in line with the spirit of the Social Security Code 2020 and will benefit over 100,000 students," Mandaviya added. In another move, the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has decided to settle over 700,000 inoperative accounts and transfer accumulated savings worth nearly Rs.30.52 crore to their subscribers' bank accounts, a pilot that will pave the way for a clean-up of 3.1 million such non-active subscriptions, a labour ministry official said. Accounts in which there is no credit of provident-fund contributions for over 36 months are categorised as inoperative and no interest is credited in them. The move is part of a pilot to settle a total of 3.1 million dead accounts which together have accumulated savings of Rs.10,903 crore. "This is being done so that people with inoperative accounts, who may have money left in them, get their dues. The EPFO doesn't own these sums and therefore they will be returned," the official said. "Since these PF deposits are linked to active KYC-enabled bank accounts, the amounts can be easily returned."...