The revised pension should be made applicable to all eligible pensioners, even if they had not opted for an increase in their (employee) share of contribution above the mandatory limit under the Employee Pension Scheme, 1995, says M. Jagadiswara Rao, all-India vice-president of Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS).
Employees had not opted for a rise in their contribution to the EPS-95 due to negative campaign by one of the trade unions, which conducted prolonged struggles and made the people believe that EPS-95 was not good and that employees could get a greater amount of interest by putting their funds in a bank, said Mr. Jagadiswara Rao, who is a member of the Central Board of Trustees of the Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), when his attention was drawn to the issue.
The Family Pension Scheme (FPS-1971) was replaced by EPS-1995, following struggles by trade unions for the benefit of pensioners. The employees were allowed to increase their share of contribution but the campaign made them not to go for it. The EPFO had also failed to give proper publicity to create awareness among employees on its benefits, except for issuing an advertisement. Only employees of some organisations like Steel Plant and RTC had opted to increase their share of contribution under EPS-95.
“The BMS seeks that all eligible employees, irrespective of their exercising the option of revising their contribution in the past, should be allowed to pay the difference now and get the benefit of enhanced pension. “Only employees of ‘un-exempted establishments’ can be paid enhanced pension, if they pay the difference in their actual contribution under EPS-95, as per the Supreme Court order. The employees of the ‘un-exempted estblishments’ would have to pay huge amounts, which could run into lakhs of rupees,” Assistant PF Commissioner Abdul Khader told The Hindu on Wednesday.
“We received a number of applications from pensioners of exempted establishments but they stopped after we (EPFO Sub Regional Office) issued a clarification that exempted establishments need not be paid for the time being. The claimants should also have the old pay slips or PF slips to know the share of their contribution and get the difference amount,” he said.
Pensioners of Public Sector Undertakings like VSP, private sector and contract employees, fulfilling the criteria, would be eligible under EPS-95.
