Date:23/09/2003 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2003/09/23/stories/2003092300991300.htm

National

Ministry distributes gold coins to staff

By Aarti Dhar

NEW DELHI SEPT. 22. Even as the 30-lakh odd Employees Provident Fund (EPF) subscribers wait for the Labour Ministry notification to retain 9.5 per cent rate of interest on their provident fund contributions, the 22,000-strong EPFO staff have already got their share of gold in the EPFO's Golden Jubilee year.

The Ministry had announced a bonus of 0.5 per cent to all the EPF subscribers and a gold coin for the staff to mark the 50 years of the EPFO's existence on May 31 this year. While reducing the interest on provident fund by 0.5 per cent, the Union Labour Minister, Sahib Singh Verma, had said it would be compensated by a "bonus" of 0.5 per cent in the Golden Jubilee year. For the staff, he announced a gold coin each as a goodwill gesture.

The celebrations in the EPFO started last month when the staff members were presented a fancily packed gold coin, each weighing approximately 8 gm. As many as 300 coins have been kept at the Labour Minister's discretion. The total exercise is said to have cost a whopping Rs. 6 crores. Packing alone had cost about Rs. 25 lakhs and the remaining amount was spent on purchasing about 160 kg of gold in the form of sovereigns, sources said.

The exercise of distributing the coins was deliberately made a low-key affair since the EPFO had failed to keep its promise to the subscribers.

As things stand now, the notification for retaining 9.5 per cent rate of interest is yet to be issued following objections raised by the Finance Ministry which refused to release funds for the "bonus" saying that the EPFO rules had no provision for bonus.

Sources said there had been no monthly credit of balance on the provident fund since April in the absence of the mandatory notification. Those who retired after April are the worst losers as no interest is being calculated on their savings.

On May 31, Mr. Verma said the one-time "bonus" would be given from the contingency fund that had a corpus of Rs. 2,000 crores.