3 min readNew DelhiMar 5, 2023 08:09 AM IST
First published on: Mar 4, 2023 at 04:15 AM IST
Citing “practical problems” in opting for higher pension on the website of Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) has written to Central Provident Fund Commissioner to restructure the link and issue necessary directions to comply with the Supreme Court’s directions in “letter and spirit” regarding the Employees’ Pension Scheme.
In a letter dated March 3, CITU’s General Secretary Tapan Sen has written to EPFO’s Central Provident Fund Commissioner Neelam Shami Rao asking for a comprehensive statement on the issue stating that so far there have been more than three circulars dealing “piece-meal” with different aspects that have led to a lot of confusions among the beneficiary-pensioners. “There must be a cohesive instruction from EPFO and more pensioners/employee-friendly hassle-free mechanism to avail the benefits,” the letter stated.
Sen said the link provided by the EPFO to exercise option for higher pension first asks whether the subscriber had opted for higher pension benefit while joining the EPS-95 scheme, which most had not opted for and so, the link is programmed to deny the benefits of the Supreme Court ruling to the eligible pensioners.
“When the EPS-95 was started, obviously, no one had opted for higher pension benefits while joining the scheme, since there was no such amenable provision for the employees to independently opt for higher pension, without concurrence of the employers and the employers were not generally concurring owing to higher payment obligation. Then all subscribers – employees, incidentally, have to say ‘no’ as they never had been given an opportunity to record their option for higher pension benefits earlier,” the letter said.
Also, the link asks to upload the PDF format of the document which was supposed to be submitted for recording the option. “Obviously the employees & ex-employees do not have such documents because they never had an opportunity to record their option for higher pension when they joined the scheme,” it said.
Consequently, if the worker responds with ‘no’ to the very first query whether he had opted for higher pension during the initial launch of EPS-95, and/or fails to submit that document of option for higher pension while first joining EPS-95, then she/he will not get any further response from EPFO link, Sen said in the letter. “In such a way, it is programmed eventually to deny the benefits of the Supreme Court Judgment to the eligible pensioners… the efforts from EPFO should be more focused on delivering the benefits as per the Supreme Court Judgment to all those who are eligible rather than to create hurdles,” it said.
On Monday, the EPFO extended the deadline to opt for higher pension to May 3. The Supreme Court in a ruling on November 4 had upheld the amendments to the Employees’ Pension (Amendment) Scheme, 2014, implying another chance for employees who were existing EPS members as on September 1, 2014 to contribute up to 8.33 per cent of their ‘actual’ salaries — as against 8.33 per cent of the pensionable salary capped at Rs 15,000 a month — towards pension.
Also, the link asks to upload the PDF format of the document which was supposed to be submitted for recording the option. "Obviously the employees & ex-employees do not have such documents because they never had an opportunity to record their option for higher pension when they joined the scheme," it said.
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