The Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has enabled a web link on its members’ page on February 27, 2023 allowing employees and pensioners to opt for higher provident fund pension based on actual salary. The EPFO has also extended the time to submit the options till May 3 as the Supreme Court-set deadline for submitting the joint options with employers ends on March 3.
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The decision is part of implementing the Supreme Court verdict on November 4 allowing pensioners and workers who are members of the Employees Pension Scheme (EPS) 1995 as on September 1, 2014 to opt for higher pension. “The joint option for employees who were in service prior to September 1, 2014, and continued to be in service on or after September 1, 2014, but could not exercise joint option under the Employees’ Pension Scheme can do so now on or before May 3, 2023,” EPFO said on its website. There is a separate web link for employees who retired before September 1, 2014 to validate their joint options with the employer.
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President of National Confederation of Retirees, an all-India federation of associations of retired employees, Gurmukh Singh said in a letter to Central Provident Fund Commissioner Neelam Shami Rao on Monday that forcing about 25,000 pensioners who retired before September 1, 2014 and had not used the then non-existent provisions of submitting joint options under paragraphs 11(3) and 11(4) of the EPS to verify their joint options is illogical.
“This is surely an action of inconsiderate high headedness on your part and quite unprecedented ever and has been unleashed on old, frail, and poor senior citizens who had all along toiled hard in their working lives to build and strengthen the nation’s economy. It is so unfair, unethical and immoral too and devoid of any logic,” Mr. Singh said in the letter.