This decision was taken to make full payment of interest at the rate of 8.5 percent to EPF shareholders. But, due to the huge upsurge in the market due to Kovid-19, it could not be done.
New Delhi: The Employees Provident Fund Organization (EPFO) has taken an important decision on Wednesday. It will pay partial interest on the provident fund for the financial year 2019-20 to its six crore subscribers. It will be done in two installments. Now 8.15 percent interest will be paid out of the fixed rate of 8.50 percent on EPF. The remaining 0.35 percent will be paid in December. This decision was taken in the meeting of the EPFO Trustee on Wednesday.
Apart from this, the board has increased the upper limit of payout from Rs 6 lakh to Rs 7 lakh under its deposit linked insurance scheme. However, the proposal of EPFO to run a separate pension scheme for its customers faced opposition from the representatives of the employees. This proposal will be considered again in the next meeting in December.
EPFO had earlier planned to sell its funds invested in Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) in the market. This decision was taken to make full payment of interest at the rate of 8.5 percent to EPF shareholders. However, due to the huge upsurge in the market due to Kovid-19, it could not be done.
The Central Trustee Board (CBT) of EPFO is the apex decision making body of the organization. It will meet again in December 2020. In this, the payment of the outstanding amount of interest at the rate of 0.35 per cent will be considered in the accounts of the Provident Fund shareholders.
This issue of interest payment was not listed in the Board of Trustees meeting on Wednesday. However, some trustees raised the issue of delay in payment of interest in PF accounts. Labor Minister Santosh Gangwar is the Chairman of the Board of Trustees.
The board has decided to pay 8.5 percent interest on PF for 2019-20 in a meeting held in March this year. The Finance Ministry has already agreed to the decision of paying 8.5 percent interest on PF for the last financial year.
Source: economictimes.indiatimes.com
