The Government has assured central trade unions that it was willing to guarantee payment of dues including interest on Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) amounts transferred to the proposed Senior Citizens’ Welfare Fund (SCWF) should any claimant come forward at any time.
The assurance was given by senior government representatives at the recently concluded meeting of the Central Board of Trustees (CBT) of the EPFO where the central trade unions had vehemently opposed the move to transfer unclaimed EPF money to the SCWF.
As per minutes of the meeting released by EPFO, Labour Secretary, Shankar Aggarwal, who is also vice-chairman of CBT, had given the assurance of payment of all money due to genuine claimant including interest on unclaimed EPF money transferred to SCWF. An EPF amount is termed ‘unclaimed’ if no claimant has come for seven years after it has become inoperative.
However, the assurance was not accepted by the trade union representatives because of which the item had to be withdrawn from the agenda. It was agreed that the Ministry of Labour would seek the intervention of the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi and Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley to get EPF money out the corpus that would form the SCWF.
The formation of the SCWF was announced by the Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley, in his budget for 2016-17.
The government representatives had argued that the proposal emanated from a recent amendment carried out in the Finance Act which said notwithstanding anything contained in any legislation, the amount unclaimed for seven years after it has become inoperative, lying in EPF, PPF and other small savings schemes will be utilised for the Senior Citizen Welfare Fund.
It was further pointed out to the opposing unions that the amendment has been carried out by the Government in exercise of its sovereign powers by notification of the Amendment Act as well as the rules framed for this purpose.
However, despite the assurances and explanations, government representatives were unable to convince the union representatives who had boycotted the CBT meeting on the issue. The unions argued that even if said law has been passed, the CBT should have ultimate control over the Funds under the statutory provisions contained in the EPF & MP Act, 1952 regarding administration of the funds.
The issue would now be taken up after ascertaining the views of the PMO and the Finance Ministry.
