Pensioners Alert! EPFO: Good News Before Diwali? Minimum Pension May Jump To Rs 2,500 From Rs 1,000 In EPS

Once again hopes of a hike in the minimum pension under the EPS-95 scheme are making the rounds. Pensioners are looking forward to a Diwali gift from EPFO as a game-changing meeting is scheduled to be held in October. Among key discussions and decisions expected in the meeting is the hike in minimum pension from Rs 1,500.

EPFO Upcoming:

The Central Board of Trustees (CBT) of the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) is reportedly expected to meet between October 10th to October 11th. The meeting is expected to take place in Benaluru, and will be chaired Union Labour and Employment Minister Mansukh Mandaviya.

Several benefits in employees provident fund (EPF) accountholders is expected to be announced, which would likely boost household consumption ahead of the mega festival Diwali.

This will be the first meeting in seven months.

Among the agendas is a comprehensive upgrade of EPFO to offer seamless transactions in EPF and EPS accounts. The EPFO portal is expected to be revamped. For this, major tech companies such as Infosys, TCS, and Wipro were shortlisted.

Under 3.0, it is expected that financial transactions such as partial withdrawal through ATMs or UPI. Another big announcement expected is in regards to minimum pension under EPS 1995.

Minimum Pension Hike:

There is a likelihood of raising the minimum pension amount from Rs.1,500 to Rs.2,500. This has been a long-pending demand of the trade unions because of rising living costs. The EPFO Central Board of Trustees seems to have finally decided to address their demand, as pr HDFC Sky blog.

Earlier, as per reports, EPFO revealed that although a High-Level Monitoring Committee had recommended increasing the minimum pension to Rs 2,000 and submitted the suggestion to the Finance Ministry, it was not accepted. EPFO revealed this in a reply to a query on June 18.

Under the PM Narendra Modi government, the Ministry of Labour & Employment provided the first minimum pension of Rs 1,000 per month to the pensioners of the Employees' Pension Scheme (EPS), 1995. This has been in place since September 1, 2014.

EPS 1995 is defined as a Contribution-Defined Benefit Social Security Scheme. As of now, the corpus of the EPS is based on (i) contribution by the employer @ 8.33 per cent of wages; and (ii) contribution from the Central Government through budgetary support @ 1.16 per cent of wages, up to an amount of Rs 15,000/- per month.

Since then, the minimum pension under EPS has not been revised.