From Bhupen Goswami
GUWAHATI :The 230 th meeting of The Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation’s (EPFO’s) apex decision making body Central Board of Trustees was held on Saturday in Guwahati under the Chairmanship of Union Minister Bhupendra Yadav. The meeting took decision to bring down EPF interest to 8.1% from the existing 8.5%. In March 2020, EPFO had lowered the interest rate on provident fund deposits to a seven-year low of 8.5 % for 2019-20, from 8.65 % provided for 2018-19. The EPF interest rate provided for 2019-20 was the lowest since 2012-13, when it was brought down to 8.5 %.
Apart from the Interest Rate the Central Board took following key decisions During the meeting, the following The board also approved the Revised Estimates for the year 2020-21 and Budget Estimates for the year 2022-23 for schemes administered by EPFO. ? The board ratified the extension of tenure of External Concurrent Auditor, Custodian, and the tenure of SBI MF & UTI MF as ETF manufacturers till 31.03.2022 or till appointments are madewhichever is earlier. The Board was informed that redemption of equity investment was carried out during the month of February 2022 which resulted in the realization of capital gains of Rs. 5529.7 crores which will be included in the income for FY 2021?22. The annualized rate of return on this investment was 13.91%this is the highest in the last three years. ?
The board ratified the decision to redeem Non-Convertible Debentures (NCDs) of Air India in EPFO’s portfolio. This redemption had helped EPFO realize Rs8944.32 Cr. against the face value of Rs 7772.50 Cr. ? The board approved the Exit Policy and the related Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for exiting from the downgraded securities. ? The Board approved enhancement of delegation of administrative and financial powers of CPFC for expenditure under the Budget head capital expenditure/Hiring of office accommodation. ? The board approved the recommendations of the HR/establishments Adhoc Committee paving the way for promotion of dying cadres, filling up of vacancies in group B and C cadres in a time bound manner, transfer policy for commissioner’s cadre and training policy and capacity building planof EPFO were approved. Welfare funds allocated for sports and cultural activities will be enhanced. 5% sports quota vacancies will be filled up with suitable candidates and an objective criteria will be laid down for filling these vacancies. The board approved the recommendations of the Adhoc committee on coverage and related litigation to ensure universal coverage to all under the social security schemes of EPFO upto the wage ceiling. It also agreed to extend social security coverage to gig and platform workers. ? The board approved the recommendations of the Adhoc IT and communications to augment the infrastructure, applications, build capacity, carry out business processes engineering and setting up governance apparatus.
The Board approved the recommendations of the adhoc committee on pension reforms to constitute thetask force of experts in the field the pension and social security to suggest possible measures to enhance the benefits from the EPS-95. This task force will include members from PFRDA, LIC, VVGNLI, two independent actuaries, chief investment officers of some reputed investment firms/mutual fund houses, financial or any other expert.
