As protests against stringent norms for withdrawal of money from the Employees’ Provident Fund turned violent, with garment workers in Bengaluru setting ablaze public transport and even attacking a police station, a cornered Central government on Tuesday cancelled the notification regarding the tighter rules. The cancellation announcement was made by Union labour and employment minister Bandaru Dattatreya.
Buckling in the face of protests, the government revoked the order tightening rules for withdrawal of PF money within hours of first keeping it in abeyance for three more months.
Giving reasons for the rollback, the minister said, “The reason is the request of trade unions. The earlier decision (to tighten the PF withdrawal norms) was also taken by the opinion of the trade unions.
The two norms that government withdrew
Labour unions opposing the amendment to the EPF Act and had voiced concerns that the new rule would take away their right over the employer’s portion of PF till the employees reach 58 years of age.
This is the second rollback on the revised EPF withdrawal norms announced in this year’s budget — the government had to earlier scrap its proposal to make 40% of the corpus taxable on withdrawal.
In the Budget, the finance minister had proposed to tax 60% of the corpus of the EPF contributions created after April 1, 2016 at the time of withdrawal. He proposed to exempt these from I-T if the amount was invested in pension annuity scheme.
DC’s take
Government has to understand that savings like PF play an extremely crucial part in a common man’s life. Mostly, the sum is used for medical treatment, education, marriage, or ilk. Tinkering with this fund, which is nothing but a man’s hard earned money and right, does not behove good for a government. In fact it should pay more attention in catching big thieves rather than going after common men and making their lives miserable. The other day, even Supreme Court expressed concern that rich and unscrupulous elements with money power abuse the judicial process and waste the time of the courts. This is the area which should be of concern for the government, and not a poor worker’s hardearned PF.
