A proposed discussion at the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation’s 19 November trustees’ meeting could revive demands to raise the minimum EPS pension, unchanged since 2014, to Rs 7,500 plus dearness allowance.
Millions of retired workers who rely on the Employees’ Pension Scheme are watching closely as the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation prepares for a board meeting that could reopen the debate over the scheme’s long-stalled minimum pension. According to NDTV Profit and Business Standard, the Central Board of Trustees is due to meet on 19 November in Gir, Gujarat, and a proposal to raise the floor under the scheme is expected to be among the items discussed, although the agenda has not yet been made final.
The question matters because the current minimum monthly pension has stood at Rs 1,000 since September 2014, a level trade unions and pensioner groups say no longer stretches far enough in an inflationary economy. Some union representatives have argued for lifting that amount to Rs 7,500 a month and linking it to dearness allowance, the adjustment used to soften the effect of rising prices. That demand has circulated for years, but any change would still depend on how the government balances social security with the pension fund’s financial health.
The Employees’ Pension Scheme, often known as EPS-95, was created in 1995 to provide retirement income to workers in the organised sector who are covered by the broader provident fund system. Under the current rules, an employee generally needs at least 10 years of pensionable service to qualify, and the payment is based on a formula that takes account of pensionable salary and service length. Even so, the guaranteed minimum has remained the same for more than a decade, which is why the issue keeps returning to the policy agenda.
There has already been movement on a related front. Earlier this year, the government raised the wage ceiling for mandatory EPFO coverage from Rs 15,000 to Rs 25,000 a month, a change that could affect how benefits are calculated for some workers under the pension scheme. But in Parliament in July, the government made clear that it was not announcing an immediate increase in the minimum pension, signalling that any revision would require a wider decision on costs and sustainability. For now, the coming trustees’ meeting is significant less for what it guarantees than for the possibility that the long-running demand may finally get a formal hearing.
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