`Anti-people, anti-worker step`: Mamata Banerjee slams Centre after provident fund interest rate cut to 4-decade low

`After the vote victory in UP, BJP government comes out with its gift card immediately,` the West Bengal Chief Minister said.

New Delhi: A day after interest rate on employees' provident fund deposits was cut to a four-decade low, West Bengal Mamata Banerjee chief minister on Sunday (March 13, 2022) hit out at the Centre and called it 'anti-people and anti-worker step'.

Taking to Twitter, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo, "After the vote victory in UP, BJP government comes out with its gift card immediately! It at once unmasks itself by proposing to slash the interest rate on Employees' Provident Fund deposits to a four-decade low nadir."

"This is amidst the pandemic-hit financial stresses of middle and lower middle-class workers and employees of the country. The anti-people, anti-worker step exposes the crudely lopsided public policies of the current central establishment which espouses interests of big capital at the expense of farmers, workers, and middle classes. The black initiative must be thwarted by united protests," she wrote.

The remarks came after the interest rate on provident fund deposits for 2021-22 was reduced to an almost four-decade low of 8.1 per cent for its around five crore subscribers, down from 8.5 per cent in 2020-21.

This, notably, is the lowest interest rate since 1977-78 on deposits that employees make towards their retirement fund. The interest rate on employees provident fund that year stood at 8 per cent.

The 8.1 per cent interest rate was recommended by the Central Board of Trustees (CBT) after its meeting in Guwahati under the chairmanship of Union Labour and Employment Minister Bhupendra Yadav, a labour ministry statement said.

"The Central Board recommended 8.10 per cent annual rate of interest to be credited on EPF accumulations in members' accounts for the financial year 2021-22 (ending on March 31, 2022)," it said.

The recommendation will now go to the Union Finance Ministry and will be notified once it is approved by it.

"The interest rate would be officially notified in the government gazette following which EPFO would credit the rate of interest into its subscribers' accounts," the statement said.

The EPFO paid an 8.5 per cent interest rate to its subscribers in 2020-21, the same as in the previous year. The EPF rate was 8.65 per cent in 2018-19 and 8.55 per cent in 2017-18. In 2016-17, the EPF interest rate was at 8.65 per cent.

(With agency inputs)