The Hindu : `Another attack on workers'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jun 01, 2003

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`Another attack on workers'

By Our Staff Correspondent

NEW DELHI MAY 31. The All-India Central Council of Trade Unions has condemned the decision of the Employees Provident Fund Trustees Board meeting to reduce the interest rate on PF from 9.5 per cent to 9 per cent.

In a statement today, an AICCTU spokesperson said the move was a ``blatant attack on the lifeline of lakhs of employees and had been done at the diktat of multinationals and big capitalists''.

The AICCTU activists held demonstrations across the country in protest against the reduction. The Central Trade Unions, too, have condemned the cut. Describing it as yet another attack on the workers, a statement issued by the unions said the reduction of interest rate on the total deposit of Rs 1,40,000 crores will hurt millions of subscribers. ``The announcement of traditional 0.5 per cent bonus for the current year, which is golden jubilee year, had been announced in 1978 also to mark the silver jubilee year of the EPFO,'' the statement said, adding that the reduction was totally unjustified as the Government had with it 80 per cent of the total corpus of the Special Deposit Scheme. The huge amount in SDS cannot be compared with reduction in rate of interest in small savings, as the SDS cannot be compared with reduction in interest rate in small savings, as the SDS amount is for a long and indefinite period and the Government is obliged to ensure better return, the trade unions have said.

The president of the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM), R.K. Somany, said the Government's decision was in the right direction. He, however, said the exempted establishments that were already finding it difficult to pay the existing rate of interest will be in difficulty to sustain the rate of interest and therefore expected the Government to review the rate at an appropriate time.

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