NEW DELHI : The Central Board of Trustees of the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) on Monday failed to arrive at a consensus on the rate of interest for its four crore subscribers for the year 2005-06. The Board will meet again on December 7.

Talking to reporters after a six-hour meeting, Union Labour Minister K. Chandrasekhara Rao said the discussions remained inconclusive and would be held again on December 7. He also said that there were some finances available with the organisation that needed to be looked into.

Panel recommendation

While the trade unions are unanimously opposing any reduction in the rate of interest, the Board does not have enough money to maintain it at 9.5 per cent. The corpus with the EPF allows payment of eight to 8.25 per cent. In fact, the Finance and Investment sub-committee of the Board has also recommended reduction of interest to eight per cent from the present 9.5 per cent.

Prime Minister's intervention sought

Earlier in the day, all central trade unions (CTU) sought Prime Minister's intervention for restoration of the interest rate on EPF to pre-July 2000 (12 per cent) by enhancing the rate of interest on the Special Deposit Scheme (SDS) as well as the Government bonds.

In a letter addressed to the Union Labour Minister, major central trade unions asked him to seek Prime Minister's intervention to ensure that the interest rates did not go down. The signatories to the letter included Hasubhai Dave (Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh), Ashok Singh (Indian National Trade Union Congress), D.L.Sachdev (All India Trade Union Congress), W.R.Varadarajan (Centre of Indian Trade Unions), A.D.Nagpal (Hindi Mazdoor Sabha) and Sankar Saha (United Trade Union Congress -LS).

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