Date:05/11/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/11/05/stories/2008110560820800.htm

Tamil Nadu

Decision to withdraw commutation option flayed

S.Vydhianathan

CITU leader writes to Union Labour Minister

CHENNAI: W.R. Varada Rajan, Member of the Central Board of Trustees, Employees Provident Fund, and secretary of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions, has condemned the government’s decision to withdraw commutation option for employees.

In a letter to Union Labour Minister Oscar Fernandes, Mr. Varada Rajan said the decision was arbitrary and was taken with ‘unseemly haste’ flouting all norms.

It would impose adverse changes in the benefit package of the pension scheme 1995. The decision would have far reaching consequences as it would substantially reduce the benefit package of the pension scheme to the detriment of the workers.

He said the subject was listed as an agenda at the meeting of the Central Board of Trustees, EPF, held on January 24, April 17, and July 5 and was deferred on all the three occasions. Now, a decision had been taken without the knowledge of the board. “This was highly deplorable.”

The decision was taken even while a comprehensive review of the scheme was under way and a committee had already been set up for this. This “unjustified” move had rendered the statutory tripartite body of the CBT “irrelevant” and reduced the tripartite consultation mechanism in the Labour Ministry to mockery, he said.

P. Balakrishnan, general secretary of the All-India Cooperative Employees Federation, has also criticised the Government’s decision.