(EAS Sarma)
More than 40 lakhs of employees covered by EPS-95 are getting a monthly pension of less than Rs 1500 and most of them are getting a monthly pension of less than Rs 1000 only. This works out to around Rs 33 per day, a figure that should make anyone with a conscience feel deeply concerned. This section of the population, like the workers in the unorganised sector, are also the ones hurt by COVID 19 crisis. They are highly vulnerable to the virus.
I understand that the government is currently contributing Rs 6,000 crore annually to the EPS pool. I understand further that the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Labour has asked the EPFO and the Labour Ministry at a recent meeting to examine the pattern of investment of the EPS funds vis a vis the returns earned, with a view to making sure that the pool is managed prudently. This calls for urgent action.
When BJP was in opposition in 2013, its leaders had demanded that the government should increase its contribution to the EPS pool and enhance the minimum EPS pension to Rs 3,000 per month. The logic that was applicable at that time should continue to be applicable today and, therefore, there is perhaps a strong case for indexing the monthly pension rate of Rs 3,000 in 2013 with reference to the subsequent rise in the cost index.
After all, the idea of a pension is to provide reasonable succour to an employee post-retirement who had served the nation for a minimum period of time. Inflationary trends in the economy that have rendered the cost of living dearer are the result of shortcomings in fiscal management. The pensioners should not be penalised on account of such trends as they tend to erode the real value of the pension.
The usual reason cited by the government for not enhancing the EPS pension rate is that its fiscal position is tight and it cannot afford to put in a higher contribution to the pension pool. This may not hold water for a government that has had no hesitation whatsoever in opting to divert more than Rs 20,000 crores for the ambitious Central Vista project in Delhi and, earlier, spending more than Rs 3000 crores on the Statue of Unity in Gujarat! A smile on a pensioner’s face should mean much more in a country like ours than statues, and symbolic concrete structures.
(Full text of the Dr EAS Sarma’s letter to Nirmala Sitharaman, finance minister, GOI)