‘Govt considering EPFO’s voluntary pension scheme proposal’

Kolkata, Sep 02 (PTI) The Labour Ministry is activelyconsidering proposal of a voluntary pension scheme mooted bythe Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), a seniorgovernment official has said. "We have devised a voluntary pension scheme forindividuals where workers can put in money voluntarily whichwould be managed by EPFO," said, V P Joy, Central ProvidentFund Commissioner (CPFC). The proposal had been sent to the Labour Ministry which isactively considering it, he said adding that the governmentwas keen to formulate such a scheme. "After the labour ministry considers it, it will be thensent to the finance ministry for income tax exemption", hetold reporters here. Joy said LIC was also running a similar scheme, addingthat the voluntary scheme was besides the mandatory pensionscheme being run by the EPFO where Rs 15,000 was limit forcompulsory credit to the provident fund and the maximumpension amount was Rs 7,500 per month. "The deduction of Rs 15,000 as compulsory credit is likelyto be revised which will again raise the maximum pensionlimit," he said. Under the proposed scheme, the employers could also makevoluntary contribution if they wanted to for the benefit ofthe employees, he said. Unlike the present PF pension scheme, the proposed schemewould have a vesting age of 60 years instead of 58 years, hesaid. Joy said that EPFO would start an exercise soon to rankthe performance of exempted trusts on various parameters. "There are nearly 1,000 exempted trusts now. We will startranking their performances shortly. Of some of them are foundto be dismal, their exemptions may be cancelled," he said. The CPFC also said that pensioners would now have to linktheir UAN (universal account number) with Aadhar for gettingpension. The EPFO was also taking with 24 public sector banksfor disbursal of pension money. "Linking of Aadhar to made mandatory by law. There are 104crore odd Aadhar cards issued out of 125 crore totalpopulation. So there will be no problem." Regarding PF investments, he said only five per cent ofinvestable money was being put into equity, which according tohim was too small. "Over time, this percentage of investments in equity willgo up", he said. PTI dc MMABI