The State government has written to the Centre asking to maintain the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) interest rate at 8.5% during 2021-22.
The Centre has slashed the interest on workers’ retirement savings parked with the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) to 8.1% for 2021-22 from the 8.5% rate offered the previous two years.
Resentment
In a letter to Bhupender Yadav, Union Minister of Labour and Employment, V. Sivankutty, Minister for General Education and Labour, said the decision to slash the rate on workers’ retirement savings parked with the EPFO from 8.5% to 8.1% for 2021-22 had created huge resentment among the workers. The decision, if implemented, would adversely affect more than 6.4 crore workers’ retirement income. This was the only amount they received during their retirement. Most of the workers got only a minimum EPF pension of ₹1,000 after retirement.
The Centre should ensure sovereign guarantee to the EPFO’s corpus fund of more than ₹15 lakh crore and maintain the EPF rate at 8.5% itself during 2021-22, said Mr. Sivankutty in the letter.
