Retirement fund body Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO)is planning to increase its maximum amount of insurance under its Employees’ Deposit Linked Insurance Scheme (EDLI)to Rs 5.5 lakh from the existing Rs 3.6 lakh. EPFO’s proposal to raise its insurance benefit for its six crore subscribers will be put for approval by the Pension and EDLI Implementation Committee. After getting their approval it will be then placed before the Central Board of Trustees’ (CBT) headed by the Labour Minister which EPFO’s apex decision making body.
Once these trustees give their approval the EDLI scheme will be amended by giving a notification by the ministry. The current scheme is that in case of demise of a subscriber after one year continuous service within the same organisation the person nominated by the subscriber is entitled to get an amount which is equal to 20 times of average wage drawn by the subscriber during his past 12 months of service with a 20 per cent bonus on it.
With an average wage ceiling of Rs 15,000 per month, the maximum amount assured to receive by a worker amounts to Rs 3.6 lakh. The new proposal proposes that the maximum benefit given to its subscribers should be raised to 30 times of the average pay drawn during preceding 12 months in addition to 50 per cent of the average balance of the EPF account subject to a ceiling of Rs 1 lakh. Once this proposal gets approved by the CBT then the maximum sum assured to the subscribers will be increased to Rs 5.5 lakh.
The proposal deals with two sets of calculations for computing the sum for its subscribers. The two conditions are subscribers with less than 12 months of service and subscribers who have completed 12 months of service. In the existing scheme the subscribers with less than 12 months of service are entitled to receive a maximum sum of Rs 1.2 lakh. These category of subscribers are entitled to a sum which is equivalent to their average balance in the PF account if it is less than Rs 50,000.
In case if the PF balance is more than Rs 50,000 they are entitled to receive the same amount along with 40 % addition of the amount above Rs 50,000 to a maximum ceiling of Rs 1 lakh. They are also entitled to get 20 % bonus over the due amount.
According to the annual reports, EPFO has an investment of Rs 15,722.99 crore till March 31,2015 and they also received an incremental deposit of Rs 936.12 crore in the insurance fund in last fiscal.
