The government is considering to bring all employers employing 10 or more workers under the purview of Employees’ Provident Fund and Miscellaneous Provisions Act 1952. About 50 to 60 lakh employees would be additional beneficiaries of the Employees Provident Fund Organisation which is already handing about four crore accounts.The final decision in this regard is most likely to be taken during Central Board of Trustees (CBT) meeting scheduled on June 17. In the present scenario, all employers employing 20 or more employees come under the provident fund legislation. Apart from this all cinemas employing more than five employees and all cooperative societies operating without power aid, employing more than 50 workers are governed by the Act.Sources revealed that CBT members had discussed the matter at length during the last meeting couple of months ago. It is a long-pending demand of employees’ organisations. During the last meeting, the employers’ representatives on the board of CBT had also agreed to the idea in principle. Interestingly, there were no objections raised by the any employers’ representatives in this regard. However, they had asked for a certain time frame to implement this decision.A CBT member disclosed on the condition of anonymity that since the employers had been given enough time to think about and prepare themselves, they couldn’t buy more time. Moreover, since the elections were not very far, the government would not hesitate to take this populist move especially when it did not have to shell out any money for that, he added.
