New Delhi: Opposition members on Friday created uproar in the Lok Sabha against the slashing of EPF interest by 1.25 percent when Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee rose to present the Union Budget for 2012-13.
Left and BJP members along with some other opposition MPs
were on their feet as soon as Mukherjee started reading his
Budget speech.
Basudeb Acharia (CPI-M) and Gurudas Dasgupta (CPI)
demanded rollback of the decision, while Deputy Leader of BJP
in the House Gopinath Munde and senior party leader Murli
Manohar Joshi strongly opposed the decision announced just a
day before the Union Budget.
Speaker Meira Kumar did not allow them to raise the issue
and asked Mukherjee to continue with his speech.
The interest rate on deposits in Employees Provident Fund
were yesterday slashed from 9.5 percent to 8.25 percent for
2011-12 affecting over 4.7 crore subscribers.
The Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) had
provided 9.5 percent interest rate to its subscribers for
2010-11 after it found Rs 1,731 crore surplus in its books of
account.
The decision has already come under sharp attack from
various trade unions.
Dasgupta, who is a member of the EPFO Central Board of
Trustees and General Secretary of the CPI-backed All India
Trade Union Congress (AITUC), said the decision was not
acceptable as it would affect the working class.
PTI
First Published: Friday, March 16, 2012, 16:08