Pensioners for minimum pension hike

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, February 23

Thousands of pensioners of the Employees’ Pension Scheme (EPS) here are irked at the government for not raising the minimum pension to Rs 2,000 and offering a nominal hike on interest rate at 8.65 for the current fiscal, which was 8.56 per cent last fiscal.

An EPS subscriber, Avinash Chander, said it was unfortunate on the part of the Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) trustees to defer the decision of fixing the minimum monthly pension at Rs 2,000.

He said there were crores of EPS subscribers in the country, including this border city, who were drawing meagre pension. He sought that the government must take steps to enable employees from the private sector to draw respectable pension.

As per the EPFO, there were about 7,000 pensioners in the border district who are drawing a minimum monthly pension of Rs 1,000. There are presently about 4.20 lakh employees in the district.

Another pensioner, Sawinder Singh, said the Union Government gave its employees minimum pension of Rs 9,000, apart from DA and Rs 1,000 as medical allowance.

He said the Union Government had decided to give guaranteed minimum pension of Rs 1,000 in 2014, under the Employees’ Pension Scheme, 1995.

A communist leader, Amarjit Singh Assal, condemned the government for providing 8.65 per cent interest on PF deposits for 2018-2019 to its six crore subscribers. He said the EPFO had provided a five-year low rate of interest of 8.55 per cent to its subscribers for 2017-18. He said this section belonged to working class, who do not find respectable figure of pension even after putting in three or more decades of service.