For the first time, the members of the Parliamentary committee would have deliberations with the regional provident fund commissioners to ascertain the functioning of the EPFO at the field level, an official release said.
The decision was taken by Labour Minister Ram Ola after the committee members including representatives of trade unions, sought a special meeting exclusively on functioning of provident fund organisation since they felt that EPFO was shielding big defaulters which were mainly central PSUs.
Gurudas Dasgupta, general secretary of CPI's trade union wing AITUC, had alleged, "EPFO does not function and there is utter corruption since enforcement is marginal and coverage is less."
In view of the meeting, the labour ministry has asked the EPFO to credit 8.5 per cent interest to outgoing subscribers this year so that they do not face hardships and make efforts to realise the arrears, penalty and damages.
Ola urged Finance Minister P Chidambaram to ratify the EPF interest rates for 2002-03 and 2003-04.
