The Central Board of Trustees (CBT), the apex decision making body of the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), approved the proposed amendments in the EPS-1995 scheme in order to provide a minimum monthly pension of Rs 1,000. The move will benefit about EPFO’s 28 lakh pensioners. As per the EPFO, Labour Ministry will soon move proposal to Union Cabinet for approval.
The CBT meeting, chaired by the Labour Minister Oscar Fernandes, also decided to raise the monthly wage ceiling to Rs 15,000 from Rs 6,500 through amending EPF scheme, 1952. At present, workers in India are getting basic wages, including basic pay and DA, of up to Rs 6,500 covering under the ambit of EPFO. Furthermore, the board also decided to reduce administrative charges paid by the employers from 1.10 percent of the basic wage, including basic pay and dearness allowance to 0.85 percent. The burden would increase with the increase in wage ceiling. Besides this, the CBT also approved the proposed change in the methodology of computing the pensionable salary on the basis of average salary of the last 60 months instead of 12 months as provided in the EPS-95.
The EPFO is presently running social security programmes include Employees' Provident Fund (EPF) Scheme 1952, Employees' Pension Scheme (EPS) 1995 and Employees' Deposit Linked Insurance Scheme 1976.