The Employees' State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) today raised the monthly wage threshold to 21,000 rupees from the current 15,000 rupees, for coverage under its health insurance scheme. Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya, who is the Chairman of the ESIC Board informed this after the board meeting.<br/><br/>The board also decided to give an option to existing insured persons to continue membership even if their basic wage breaches the ceiling of <br/>21,000 per month. Mr Dattatreya said, the move of raising the threshold will help bring in an additional 50 lakh members to ESIC. <br/><br/>Both the decisions will be implemented from 1st of next month. At present, ESIC has 2.6 crore insured persons, which covers over 10 crore people, assuming four members of a family.