The Employees Provident Fund Organisation dropped its proposal to reduce the contributory provident fund payable by employers from 12% to 10% at the meeting of the Central Board of Trustees of the organisation at Pune on Saturday.
Reduction in the rate was on the agenda of the meeting but the employers’ representative on the CBT agreed on the rate remaining unchanged and, therefore, a unanimous resolution was passed, said Union Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya at a press conference here on Sunday. He said the decision of the CBT was final and there was no need to consult the Central government further over the issue. The contributory PF by employers was only 10% as per the Employees Provident Fund Act but enhanced to 12% on demand by trade unions through a notification in 1997. The issue of reverting to 10% came up again after 20 years but the employers were obviously comfortable with the Narendra Modi government’s performance.
The meeting also agreed to hike the investments by EPFO in Exchange Traded Fund from 10% to 15%. The investments were 5 per cent of the investable amount of EPFO in 2015-16, 10 per cent in 2016-17 and now 15 per cent. An amount of ₹22,858 crore was invested up to last month but an additional ₹22,000 crore was proposed this year. The rate of return from investments went up from 8.65% to 13.72% over last year.
The EPFO had a corpus of ₹8.6 lakh crore, excluding contribution from members in exempted establishments.
The Minister also said the CBT meeting discussed hike in minimum pension of workers from ₹1,000 to ₹3,000 as demanded by trade unions but it was decided to take a final view after valuation of EPFO funds by an expert committee.
