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The Parliamentary Consultative Committee of the Ministry of Labour and Employment will at its meeting on December 14, 2004 exclusively discuss the functioning of the Employees Provident Fund Organsiation, EPFO. The decision to hold the meeting was taken by the Labour and Employment Minister Shri Sis Ram Ola after suggestion made to this effect by Members of the Consultative Committee at their meeting earlier this month. Shri Ola has directed that all Regional Provident Fund Commissioners, RPFCs should be invited to the meeting. It will be for the first time that the Members will be directly interacting with RPFCs to ascertain the working of the EPFO at the field level.
Meanwhile, the Finance and Investment Committee of the EPFO has been broad based to make recommendation to the Central Board of Trustees, CBT, on the rate of interest to be given to EPF subscribers keeping in view the earnings of the Fund. The CBT, EPF after extensive discussions had on August 9, 2004 recommended 8.5% as interim rate of interest for 2004-05. The Labour Minister, in his capacity as Chairman of the CBT, has directed to EPFO to give interest at the rate of 8.5% to outgoing subscribers effective from 1st April 2004 so that they don’t face any hardship in this regard. The Labour Minister has also urged the Finance Ministry to ratify the rates of interest for 2002-03 and 2003-04 as recommended by the CBT. The EPFO has also been asked to make all efforts to realize the arrears, penalty and damages during the current financial year. It has recovered Rs. 727 crore during the first six months of 2004-05. Around Rs. 1862.80 crore were outstanding as EPF arrears at the end of the last financial year. Out of this more than half is not currently recoverable on account of either disputes in courts or establishments having gone into liquidation or declared sick by BIFR or such units being rehabilitated. The recovery scenario of arrears considerably improved in 2003-04 in as much as Rs. 1832.7 crore were recovered compared to Rs. 858.53 crore recovery made in the previous financial year.
The Labour Minister has also directed EPFO to outreach legitimate claimant to settle the Unclaimed Deposit Account. This Account had Rs. 942.95 crore as on March 31, 2004. EPFO is launching a special awareness drive to inform such subscribers who have not made PF contribution for last three years to settle their accounts.
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