• Investment World
• eWorld
• Catalyst
• Mentor
• Life
• Canvas
• Praxis
• Urban Pulse
• Brand Quest

Stocks

• Quotes
• SE Diary
• Scoreboard
• Open-End Mutual Fund

Shipping

• Ports
  
  

Archives

• Yesterday
• Datewise
• Resources

Group Sites

• The Hindu
• Business Line
• The Sportstar
• Frontline
• The Hindu eBooks
• The Hindu Images

Ambarish Mukherjee

New Delhi , Dec. 19

WITH the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) unable to find resources to maintain last year's interest rate of 9.5 per cent for its nearly four crore members, the Coal Mines Provident Fund Organisation (CMPFO) is struggling to pay even an 8 per cent interest, which Government employees get. (The CMPFO covers 6.5 lakh coal mine workers.)

The organisation is already facing a negative margin of more than one per cent on its interest earnings and outgo. It has made premature withdrawals from the Special Deposit Scheme (SDS) of the Finance Ministry, something, which it may have to do again to meet its obligations. "This is a main reason why 60-70 per cent of the pass books have not been updated," sources said.

According to rough estimates, the CMPFO had a corpus of more that Rs 30,000 crore as on March 2005, though the accounts have not yet been finalised. Of this, around Rs 5,500 crore is in on pension account and more than Rs 25,000 crore is in the provident fund account.

The organisation is under the administrative control of the Ministry of Coal and its top officials are staff borrowed from coal companies. IDBI acts as the banker to the organisation and takes all investment decisions in accordance with the guidelines set by the Finance Ministry.

Coal India sources said that the interest earned on fresh investments made by IDBI for the EPFO was continuously declining and during the years 2002-03 and 2003-04 and 2004-05 was even less than the interest payable to the subscribers.

According to the last audited figures, the total invested funds as on March 2002 were Rs 23,558.22 crore, of which Rs 6,475.55 crore had a return of 8 per cent and above, while the remaining 17,082.67 crore earned less than 8 per cent.

More Stories on : Social Security

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
Tropical storm shows signs of weakening

Copyright © 2005, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line