Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya on Wednesday ruled out any ‘comprehensive review’ of the Budget proposal to tax 60 per cent of Employee Provident Fund withdrawal.

“The issue is over,” he told reporters, when asked about Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s statement in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday, while retracting the proposal, that he had received a “number of representations from various sections, including MPs,” and that “the government would like to do a comprehensive review.”

E-biz portal

The Minister was addressing the media after the launch of e-biz portal to ease “doing business” for establishments, by offering integrated registration facility under five Central labour laws — The Employees Provident Fund & Miscellaneous Provisions Act, the Employees State Insurance Act, The Contract Labour Act, The Building & Other Construction Workers Act and the Inter-State Migrant Workmen Act.

Establishments can now file a common annual return under all these Acts, said the Ministry, adding that no separate filing of hard copy would be required henceforth.

The e-biz portal is available in 11 languages as of now, and there are plans to include 11 more soon, said an official, adding that Haryana was already on board, and six more States were likely to join the portal next fiscal.

A Ministry presentation said so far a total of 967,725 LIN (labour identification numbers) had been registered since the launch of this facility in October 2014. However, the number of online returns so far is only 1,036. So far, a total of 133,131 inspections have been done and the number of random inspections stood at 36,635, he added.

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