No need to be panicky, Govt to settle issue: War
Avtar Bhat
JAMMU, Feb 16: Allaying the apprehensions of the lakhs of EPF contributors in the J&K UT who fear axing of their deposits by reducing the rate of interest, the Government has maintained that the final decision in this regard is still awaited and the private and public sector employees contributing to the EPF whether retired or serving should not get panicky unnecessarily.
As the JKEPFO is in the process of transferring its record pertaining to 5.5 lakh EPF contributors to Central Employees Provident Fund Organisation, the dispute will be settled after the decision of the Committee constituted by the Government in this regard which will fix the rate of interest on subscribers’ amount for last five years.
Clarifying the doubts of the EPF subscribers of the UT, Commissioner, Labour, A R War told Excelsior that a unique system of bulk transfer of EPF account to Centre is in process after the conversion of J&K State into Union Territory. The subscribers applying for the withdrawal of their EPF can take the interest as per the earning rate and the balance will be paid later after the decision taken by the Committee regarding the rate of interest, he added.
He said the employees must remain assured that balance money will be paid to them after deciding the rate of interest for the period since 2014. “The employees will not be put to any problem as the difference will be paid after the UT Government decides the interest rate’’, he added.
He said the rate of interest was declared in year 2013 and 2014 and the Corporation was paying more interest on the deposits while it was earning a less rate of interest on the same. Hence the decision onwards 2014 and 2015 will be taken as per earnings.
Admitting the rate of interest since year 2014-2015 has not been calculated, War said that the process was delayed due to COVID pandemic since last year. He said the EPF is on the verge of closure and it is in the process of submitting records to Central Employees Provident Fund Organization. However, the rate of interest on the deposits will be decided by the Government and the balance amount will be paid to employees later, he added.
According to sources, lakhs of EPF subscribers in the UT have become panicky when they came to know that there is huge difference in their EPF subscription amount as the interest has not been counted for the last five years at the prescribed rate.
After the abrogation of Article 370 in J&K and formation of UT, the Jammu and Kashmir Employees Provident Fund Organization (JKEPFO) is on its final phase of transferring the subscribers PF account balances to the Central Employees Provident Fund Organization (CEPFO) offices at Srinagar, Jammu and other places across the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir. This transition process is expected to be completed by the end of the current financial year 2020-2021 without calculation of rate of interest for last five years which the subscribers feel will put them to a huge loss, sources added.
Sources said the JKEPFO subscribers were enthusiastic as they expected to avail the benefit of all the prevailing welfare schemes under the new dispensations, as per Central EPFO Act. But unfortunately, in the week commencing December 2020, the JKEPFO, before transferring the subscribers account balances to Central EPFO, have unprecedentedly applied huge reduction in the accumulated interest on all the subscribers PF savings with them, for unknown reasons and in the process of the winding up, the poor subscribers accounts are being axed, they added.
Sources said, two retired subscribers belonging to establishment code J-977 had applied for their final withdrawal from the fund in the month of June 2020. After continued pursuance by them, nine months later, one of the employee received a credit in his bank account as his full and final withdrawal settlement from JKEPFO which was found to be less by Rs nine lakh as was worked out by him. This completely shocked him and thus he submitted his representation for relook in his case with a request to provide him his complete account balance sheet and the annual interest rates applied there upon, sources added.
Sources said while reconciliation of the account balances of other subscriber for final withdrawal after his retirement, in the office of JKEPFO astonishing fact have surfaced that the JKEPFO, vide an internal departmental communication received by the concerned office in the month of December 2020, it is now applying the revised and reduced annual rate of interest with retrospective effect from financial year 2014-2015 till current financial year on all the subscriber account balances which they have to transfer to the respective Central EPFO, in the UT of Jammu and Kashmir. This has shocked the subscribers who became totally panicky, sources added.
Sources said as per the verbal assertion of the concerned officer in the organization on the basis of the Government communication, the revised interest rates now being applied on the accumulated EPF balances of all subscriber account holders in the UT of J&K are tabulated along with a comparison with the Central EPFO interest rates which were applied for the corresponding financial years.
It is important to note that all those subscriber employees whose final withdrawal settlements have been made by the JKEPFO prior to December 2020 have already received their accumulated CPF amounts with pre revised (8.5%) annual rate of interest on their opening balances.
Another employee who had applied for the withdrawal of the EPF in 2020 said that his total amount as per calculation on 8.5 percent rate of interest should have been Rs 72 lakh while the actual balance shown by the organization was Rs 64 lakh which indicates that the rate of interest was calculated at Rs 5 to 6 percent instead of 8.5 per cent.
This way the subscribers are sure to suffer a heavy loss on his/her life time savings by this action of JKEPFO. On the basis of a meticulous estimate, many of the subscriber employees who have been contributing towards the fund for the last 25 years till October 2019 are sure to lose between two lakh to 10 lakh of rupees, sources added.
Sources said on the one hand, after the abrogation of Article 370 for the erstwhile J&K State, Government of India is assuring the people of the country by beating drums about the implementation and the benefits of Social Welfare Schemes for the UT of J&K, while on the other hand, under their direct control lakhs of poor employees (approximately 5.5 lakh JKEPFO Subscribers) who have been working hard in private or semi Government organisations in UT of J&K are subjected to such heavy loss on their life time savings at the hands of JKEPFO which is directly under the control of the UT of Jammu and Kashmir Government.
The subscribers have made a fervent appeal to the Lieutenant Governor of the UT seeking his intervention into the matter and direct the concerned authorities of Jammu and Kashmir to cancel their formula of recently revised interest rates making it retrospectively effective and strictly adhere to the already fixed rates of annual interest on JKEPFO subscriber accounts.
Follow our WhatsApp channel
