Centre may approve Rs 1,000 minimum pension from this month

However, it did not find favour with the Finance Ministry as this would have resulted in permanent increase in subsidy provided by government.

The Labour Ministry in its revised proposal has asked the Finance Ministry to provide for around Rs 1,300 crore additional amount every year for the purpose, and indicated that this amount can reduce over a period of time with more members subscribing to the EPS-95.

Besides, the government is in the process of raising the basic wages ceiling under the Employees Provident Fund Scheme to Rs 15,000 from existing Rs 6,500.

All those employees getting basic wages - including basic pay and dearness allowance - of more than Rs 6,500 per month, are not covered under the social security schemes run by EPFO.

The Finance Ministry did not agree with the hike in pension subsidy to 1.79 per cent of basic wages as the proposed increase in wage ceiling would have resulted in perpetual burden on the exchequer.

EPFO has a corpus of around Rs 5 lakh crore including around Rs 1.7 lakh crore in its pension fund. It has a subscriber base of around 5 crore and all of them are covered under the EPS-95.

The increase in wage ceiling under the scheme run by EPFO is important as it would bring in around 50 lakh more works and increase the flow mandatory savings