The trustees of retirement funds belonging to about eight crore depositors on Friday decided to retain the interest rate at 8.75 per cent for 2014-15. In January this year, the trustees had raised the interest rate for 2013-14 to 8.75 per cent, from 8.5 per cent in 2012-13.
The decision was taken after a meeting of the tripartite Central Board of Trustees of the Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), chaired by Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya, here on Friday.
The decision by the trustees will now be forwarded to the Finance Ministry for clearance, after which it will be notified.
The meeting also decided to set up a separate committee to look into the “question of deployment of EPFO funds for low-cost housing, especially matters related to investment,” the Labour Minister said.
A mechanism for regulating the investments made by exempted funds will also be worked out by the committee.
It was also decided that to allow EPFO to open accounts with other nationalised banks in addition to State Bank of India to facilitate collection of contributions from employers.
Also, the trustee recommended that the maximum permissible time for EPF claim settlement be brought down from 30 days to 20 days.
Friday’s meeting also approved the revised estimates for 2014-15, according to which ₹79,377 crore is expected as contribution showing an increase of 14.77 per cent. Out of this, ₹59,346 crore is expected as EPF contribution, ₹19,000 crore as pension contribution and ₹1,031 crore as EDLI contribution.
Meanwhile, trade unions complained that several workers were not getting the minimum monthly pension of ₹1,000 announced by the government with great fanfare.
“We told the Minister about several workers not getting a single pie of the minimum monthly pension, which is their right. The Minister assured us that he will write to the Finance Ministry on this,” said AK Padmanabhan, a CBT member and president of Centre of Indian Trade Unions.
He said some employers also raised queries about ₹5 crore of EPFO funds being spent on the Shrameva Jayete programme, which “even we were not aware of”.