The ruling Congress on Saturday charged Lieutenant Governor Kiran Bedi with “deliberately trying to twist facts to defame” the government on the issue of default of employee share in Employee Provident Fund (EPF).
Addressing a press conference here, Social Welfare Minister M. Kandasamy and parliamentary secretary to the Chief Minister K. Lakshminarayanan said the default of employee share occurred during the time of N.R. Congress government.
Sharing certain documents related to the default, Mr. Kandasamy said 12 institutions such as Anglo French Textiles, Pondicherry Cooperative Sugar mills, Bharathi Mills, Swadeshi Cotton Mills, Pondicherry Cooperative Mills, Indian Coffee Workers Cooperative Society, Pondicherry State Cooperative Housing Federation, PAPSCO, Pondicherry Cooperative Textiles Processing Limited, Pondicherry Cooperative Wholesale Stores, Nedungadu Cooperative Milk Producers Society and Thirunallar Cooperative Milk Producers Society have to pay a total sum of ₹36. 23 crore as employee share to PF. Except for the three institutions, the default period of other institutions dates back to previous N. R Congress government, a perusal of the document suggests.
Mr. Kandasamy challenged the Lt Governor to respond to the charges raised against her by the Congress party. He said the government could not write off farm loans, increase old-age pension and disburse scholarship to Scheduled Caste students as the Lt Governor did not give her assent.
“The BJP in UP can write off the loans immediately after coming to power. But the Lt Governor will not allow us to waive the loans,” he said.
Mr. Lakshminarayanan said the factories, public sector undertakings and cooperative societies had to pay out from their own resources.
“The government has no role to provide funds for payment of EPF. And the government has been providing grants for payment of salaries and wages from time to time. The EPF is a legal obligation which must be respected and fulfilled. However, it is between the management of the unit concerned and the statutory EPF body to sort out the matter,” he said.
Mr. Lakshminarayanan said the management of several institutions had not paid salary. “EPF contribution becomes secondary. It is a non-issue exaggerated to make headlines. Our focus should be to pay salary, payment of EPF comes next,” he said.
“We suspect that allegations are being made to discredit the government by raising old pending non issues,” he said.
