A little over 27,000 persons from the three districts of Visakhapatnam, Vizianagaram and Srikakulam, drawing pensions under the Employees Provident Fund-95 (EPF-95) scheme, will benefit from Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s budget announcement fixing the minimum pension at Rs.1,000 under the EPF-95 scheme.
There are 61,086 EPF pensioners in the three districts under the jurisdiction of EPF Sub Regional Office, Visakhapatnam. Of them around 27,000 are drawing less than Rs.1,000 and they would now be getting a minimum pension of Rs.1,000, PF Commissioner Ranjan Kumar Sahoo told The Hindu on Friday.
“Despite the lockout at the Chittivalasa Jute Mill, we had addressed the pension claims in 980 cases of employees who had either retired, resigned or had died during the lockout period.
Such employees and their families will also benefit from the revised minimum pension,” Mr. Sahoo said and added that an official communication was yet to be received on the revised minimum pension.
“The increase in income ceiling from Rs.6,500 to Rs.15,000 will bring more number of employees under PF cover. At present, if the basic salary + DA of an employee is more than Rs.6,500 the employer would be under no obligation to provide for PF. The increase in ceiling would mean greater PF coverage and thereby more subscribers getting pensions,” says M. Jagadiswara Rao, Member of the Central Board of Trustees of EPFO.
