Khairun Bi, a senior citizen who spent half of her life rolling beedis in a factory in Goripalya in the city, beamed with joy on Tuesday. Her monthly pension of Rs. 380 — that she has been getting under the Employees Pension Scheme (EPS) linked to the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) — has now been increased to Rs. 1,000.
Although this Rs. 1,000 is not enough even for her medical expenses, she is happy that she does not have to ask money from her children for every small need. Following the Union Labour Ministry’s notification increasing the EPS pension to a minimum of Rs. 1,000, the EPF Organisation organised a programme to felicitate the pensioners in the city on Tuesday.
Similar is the case of Sri Raman, Gangamma, Kuniamma, Muniyamma and Shanmuga Sundar. After years of struggle, these people, who had been drawing less than Rs. 500, will now get a minimum monthly pension of Rs. 1,000.
Of the 44,600 EPS beneficiaries from the city, nearly 22,000 had been drawing pension of less than Rs. 500. Although the previous United Progressive Alliance government had approved the proposal to increase the pension of EPS beneficiaries, notification was not issued.
Inaugurating a programme here on Tuesday, Union Minister for Chemicals and Fertilisers Ananth Kumar said this was one of the major pro-people measures initiated by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government at the Centre.
Responding to the EPS Pensioners Welfare Federation’s demand that the minimum monthly pension be raised to Rs. 3,000 with retrospective effect from April 2014, the Minister said he would speak to Union Labour Minister Narendra Singh Tomar in this regard.
Regional PF Commissioner Sarojini Rane gave an overview of the organisation’s functioning.
Bangalore Central MP P.C. Mohan, city MLAs B.N. Vijaykumar, Satish Reddy, Muniraju and Ravi Subramanya, Regional and PF Commissioner (Peenya) K. Narayana were present.
