Employees Provident Fund interest for the year 2013-14 may be 8.5%

The reconstituted EPFO’s Central Board of Trustees (CBT), which has to take a call on interest rate on PF deposits for the current fiscal, is likely to hold its first meeting on October 4. The meeting of the CBT headed by the Labour Minister is likely to be called on October 4 for reconstituting EPFO’s sub-panels like its advisory body Finance and Investment Committee (FIC), an Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation’s (EPFO) official said.

As per the practice, FIC vets financial proposals of EPFO and puts those before the CBT for a final call. The committee is supposed to vet and put forward the proposal for providing a rate of interest on PF deposits every year.

EPFO could not announce the interest rate on PF deposits for the current fiscal as the FIC is yet to be constituted after the CBT was reconstituted in June.

The sub-panels like FIC were dissolved after CBT was formed again in June. Once FIC is reconstituted, the EPFO would provide official estimates to it for vetting and putting forward its view before CBT for taking final call.

According to sources, EPFO is likely to announce an interest rate of 8.5 per cent on PF deposits for 2013-14 to its over five crore subscribers, the same as provided for last fiscal.

The preliminary estimates indicate that the payment of 8.5 per cent rate of interest will leave no deficit for EPFO and could rather leave some surplus for the body.

EPFO paid 8.5 per cent interest rate to its subscribers in 2012-13, which was higher than 8.25 provided in the 2011-12 fiscal.

Source: http://www.financialexpress.com