The government on Monday told parliament that as many as 17.49 lakh members of retirement fund body Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) have applied for the option to contribute on their actual (higher) basic pay for getting higher pension following a Supreme Court judgement of 2022.

As of now, these applicants have either contributed or are contributing fixed ₹15,000 per month, which has nothing to do with their wages. But, the amount of pension payable on higher salary will vary from case to case.

Responding to a question, Minister for Labour and Employment Mansukh L Mandaviya said that the government is going to bring EPFO 3.0 by March next which would be robust and labour friendly to ensure that they do not face problems in transaction of their own Provident Fund money. He also said that due to government initiatives, complaints have come down by 50 percent.

“In implementation of the judgement on November 4, 2022 passed by Supreme Court, an online facility was provided by EPFO, wherein total 17.49 lakh applications for Validation of Option/Joint Options were successfully submitted by the applicants,” Minister of State for Labour & Employment Shobha Karandlaje told parliamentarians in a written reply to a query.

The government’s reply to a query came at a time when another MP, NK Premachandran of the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP), raised the issue during Zero Hour and sought immediate implementation of the enhanced pension scheme as approved by the Supreme Court.

Premachandran said employees are entitled to a higher pension under the Employees Pension Scheme (EPS) 1995 and that they should be given at the earlies.

Out of 17,48,775 applications for higher pensions as of August 7, 2024, the EPFO has given higher pensions to only 8,401 subscribers.

In another written reply to the House, Minister Karandlaje said the EPS is a ‘Defined Contribution-Defined Benefit’ social security scheme.

The corpus of the Employees’ Pension Fund, upto ₹15,000 per month, is filled with through two contributions -- one by employer at the rate of 8.33 per cent of wages and the other by Central government by way of budgetary support at the rate of 1.16 per cent of wages.

The fund is valued annually as mandated under paragraph 32 of the EPS, 1995.

For the first time in 2014, the government provided a minimum pension of ₹1,000 per month to the pensioners under the EPS by providing budgetary support. This was in addition to the existing budgetary support of 1.16 per cent of wages provided annually towards EPS to the EPFO.

The minister said the EPFO has also started an initiative termed as Prayaas with an aim to hand over PPOs to members of EPS on the day of superannuation.

Informative messages through audio visual means are regularly posted on social media, including YouTube, X, and Facebook, for easy understanding of benefits of the scheme, she added.

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