Maintaining suspense over the Employees Provident Fund interest rate for the current fiscal, which was earlier pegged at 8.5 per cent by the board, Labour Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on Tuesday said the notification alone would reveal the rate, but declined to reveal its timing.
After his meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, during which Finance Minister P Chidambaram was also present, Rao told reporters that he apprised them of 'all issues considered while recommending 8.5 per cent rate' and the demands being made by trade unions and employees for retaining the rate at 9.5 per cent.
He said it was for the labour ministry now to consider the recommendation of the Central Board of Trustees of the EPF and issue the notification, which he said would be done 'as early as possible.'
To repeated queries by the media, the minister declined to reveal whether there would be any increase in the rate.
The CBT of the EPF had recommended a 1 per cent cut in the rate from 9.5 per cent to 8.5 per cent, triggering protests from employees and trade unions and Left parties, both inside and outside Parliament.
In the backdrop of the mounting pressure on him to raise the rate, Rao had promised a fortnight ago that he would do everything possible for 'best returns' to the subscribers of the EPF and take up the issue with the prime minister.
He said that he had announced lowering of the interest rate by 1 per cent to 8.5 per cent in his capacity as chairman of the CBT, but as the labour minister he had promised to "try my best."
The prime minister, at the Indian Labour Conference, had also said he would talk to the labour minister on the issue and do whatever was possible within the resources of the Employees Provident Fund Organisation.
Singh, however, ruled out any budgetary support to retain EPF interest rate at 9.5 per cent as demanded by trade unions and some political parties, including Left parties supporting the United Progressive Alliance from outside.
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