Restore part-withdrawal of pension, demand MPs

Some Members of Parliament have demanded that the facility of part withdrawal or commutation of pension under the Employees Pension Scheme-1995 (EPS-95) should be reintroduced.
The issue of reinstating the facility of commutation of one third of the pension amount was raised during a meeting of the Consultative Committee, attached to the Labour Ministry, held here today, a source said.
Earlier under EPS-95, the subscribers of Employee's Provident Fund Organisation had the facility of part withdrawal from their pension fund account on their retirement. The facility was discontinued under a scheme in October 2008.
The meeting of the committee was chaired by Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya who also briefed members on agenda relating to discussion on EPFO.

The MPs also demanded to reintroduce the return of capital facility under the EPS-95. The facility used to permit the pensioners under the scheme to draw lesser pension after retirement for a certain specified periods and get a lump sum amount.
They also said that the minimum pension of Rs 1000 introduced under the scheme should be ensured without considering age as a factor. At present, the entitlement is available to subscriber attaining the age of 58 years.

The MPs also asked to remove monthly wage ceiling of Rs 15,000 to become member of the social security schemes run by EPFO and demanded to make these benefits universal.

At present, subscribing to EPFO schemes is mandatory for formal sector workers getting up to Rs 15,000 as basic wages per month at the time of joining.
The issue of splitting of wages by the employer was also raised in the meeting. The employer split wages into many allowances to reduce their provident fund liability.
"Members asked to bring clarity on definition of wages. They said that 90 per cent of litigation based on assessments result from lack of clarity on wages," the source said.
They also demanded that government's proposal to exempt establishments employing less than 40 from compliance of Employees Provident Fund and Miscellaneous Provisions Act may be withdrawn.

Under the proposed small factories bill, the government has proposed to exempt units employing less than 40 workers from 14 labour laws. That means they can buy health insurance and provident fund schemes from open market.
The Members of Parliament who attended the committee's meeting include Ladu Kishore Swain, Shankar Prasad Datta, NK Premchandran, M K Raghvan and Kaushal Kishore.