The government could reportedly be considering acting on the appeal by private sector employees covered under the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) for an increase in the minimum pension, which at the moment is fixed at ₹1,000 per month.
For this, a delegation of EPS-95 pensioners met Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on January 10 , 2025, as part of a pre-budget consultative meeting, according to a Financial Express report.
Their request was for a minimum monthly pension of ₹7,500, along with a dearness allowance (DA) hike and free medical treatment for both pensioners and their spouses.
Sitharaman assured the EPS-95 National Agitation Committee that the demands would be reviewed, according to the report.
Trade unions also met the finance minister during the session, but they advocated for a lower pension increase to ₹5,000 per month, the report read.
This attracted criticism from the EPS-95 National Agitation Committee which deemed the amount as inadequate, unfair, and not sufficient to meet the basic needs of pensioners.
The report quoted the pension body as claiming that despite the government’s 2014 announcement of setting the minimum monthly pension at ₹1,000, over 36.60 lakh pensioners still receive less than this amount.
EPF members contribute 12% of their basic pay towards the provident fund, while employers also match this contribution.
The employer’s contribution in itself is divided into two parts wherein 8.33% is allocated to the Employees’ Pension Scheme (EPS), while 3.67% goes towards the EPF scheme.
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