People's Democracy

FIVE central trade unions have decided to petition the Rajya Sabha Committee of Subordinate Legislation against the central government's blatant flouting of its recommendations in regard to fixing the rate of interest on Employees Provident Fund (EPF).

In a joint statement, the leaders of the AITUC, BMS, CITU, HMS and INTUC, have sought the intervention of the parliamentary committee in this matter.

As is known the government had through a notification on 8-5-2001 reduced the rate to 9.5 per cent for the year 2001-2002, ignoring the unanimous recommendation of the Central Board of Trustees (CBT) for fixing it at 10.25 per cent.

The Rajya Sabha Committee of Subordinate Legislation in their report presented to the Parliament on 1-12-2000, had made certain recommendations on the process of consultation between the government, the CBT, and EPF on this very issue.

It called for a comprehensive review of the existing interest rate of 11 per cent for the year 2000-2001 before taking a decision for 2001-2002 year. No such review was held.

It had also recommended that as part of the consultation process, in the CBT meeting itself the government should put its views on the interest rate unambiguously. In the CBT meeting held on March 23, 2001, it was unanimously recommended that the interest rate be fixed at 10.25 per cent. Both the labour and finance ministers did not express any dissension, but in an arbitrary manner a notification was issued on May 8, reducing the interest rate to 9.5 per cent.

The five major trade unions have termed this as blatant flouting of the parliamentary committee recommendations and hence decided to seek its intervention.