Retrograde reduction

The decision of the Central Board of Trustees of EPFO to reduce the interest interest from the 8.65 per cent to 8.55 per cent is retrograde.The Centre invested the PF accrual in equities and debts claiming that will fetch more returns but the reality is converse. For the last three years ROI has been sliding scale showing that fund managers have not invested properly. Why should members of the EPF scheme be made to pay for the faulty management of the corpus?

Incidentally, there is a huge amount of unclaimed money and the Government must try to settle it fast; the unsettled remaining amount must also be prudently invested. The maintenance of surplus funds must be pared and the Centre must underwrite the EPF scheme’s corpus in the interests of the employees.

Bengaluru

With reference to your edit, ‘Opening up coal’ (February 22), even the apex court had opined that auction is not the only way to allot natural resources. If the UPA had a flea market sale of coal blocks, the BJP elevated it to the level of a Sothebys.

If the former was flawed on speculative acquisitions, the later purely on bid values. In either case, coal has become a futures commodity, not an urgently needed fuel for growth.

A cognitive government and its finance and coal ministries would have taken care on the assay of the quality/quantity of these mines. User industries have always been forced to pay a disproportionate premium for getting access to an asset made scarce by the monopoly rights enjoyed by Coal India on the open market sale of coal.

Navi Mumbai

This refers to G Parthasarathy’s ‘Sharif's many hits and misses’ (February 22). It is sad to note that Indian foreign policy against Pakistan is marked with pandemonium and paradoxes. The only achievement during the current dispensation is surgical strikes against Pakistan, but infiltration is on the rise.

Using “a big stick” against will cause colossal damage. This makes for good rhetoric but the survival of humanity is more important. There cannot be any substitute for peace and talks. The leadership should realise that anything and everything can be solved through peaceful means.

Gulbarga, Karnataka

NS Vageesh is right that ‘Privatising PSBs will not solve the problem’ (February 22). What distinguishes private sector banks from PSBs is lack of accountability for results. After all, any system is as good or bad, as the person who operates it. PSBs do not follow a pay-for-performance appraisal system in the required manner. Chances are that those involved in the PNB scam may have got good appraisals and promotion because the targets are not specific. Moreover, PSBS are highly unionised. And in spite of NPAs, no heads at the senior level have rolled.

Pune

A majority of private banks have been targeting the cream of society in major cities and in the event of losses due to NPAs, the buck is passed on to the stakeholders. Any hasty decision to privatise PSBs at this stage would be and detrimental to the banking industry.

Bengaluru

The CBI is interrogating officials of only PNB and companies involved, leaving aside the auditors. It is surprising to note that the PNB management has given a clean chit to audit teams. The lapses on the part of the auditors, particularly from the RBI, cannot be ignored.

Hyderabad

The launch of Makkal Needhi Mayyam (People Justice Centre) by actor Kamal Haasan has made Tamil Nadu politics a crowded affair. The move coming on the heels of superstar Rajnikanth’s political debut lends an interesting dimension to TN politics which clearly is at a murky crossroads. The actor seeks to unite all the South Indian States. Despite his popularity, Kamal Haasan has his task cut out.

Bengaluru

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