Under pressure from the finance ministry to lower the interest rate on Employees Provident Fund (EPF) from the present 9.5 per cent, the EPF board is likely to meet on March 28 to review the rates for 2003-04. The meeting of Central Board of Trustees of EPFo would be held in the backdrop of the proposed one per cent cut in the interest rate on special deposit scheme, which comprises over 80 per cent of the EPF corpus, official sources told PTI here. Since a major chunk of investments of EPF went into sds, any slash in interest rate on sds would apparently mean a cut in EPF rates in the days to come. However, Labour Minister Sahib Singh Verma, who is chairman of the cbt, is not in favour of bringing down the interest rate and says there is no need for it considering the ‘wise’ investments made in the past. Labour ministry sources said “if we continue to get the same rate of interest on what we had invested earlier, then may be we can continue with the present rate.”
