Employees With Less Than 6 Months Left In Service Can Withdraw Pension

Employees who have less than six months left in their service will be allowed to withdraw accumulations in Employee's Pension Scheme 1995 (EPS-95). The announcement was made by the Employees' Pension Fund Organisation (EPFO) on Monday, reported news agency PTI. The move was recommended by EPFO's highest decision-making body, the Central Board of Trustees (CBT) at its 232nd meeting headed by Union Labour Minister Bhupender Yadav, according to a statement by the labour ministry. Recommending amendments to the EPS-95 scheme, the CBT said that subscribers who have less than six months left to serve in their organisations should be allowed to withdraw from their EPS accounts. The recommendations also include extending proportionate pensionary benefits to those who are members of the scheme for over 34 years, the report added. As per the ministry's statement, the board recommended enabling equitable transfer value calculation in case of grant or cancellation of exemption from the EPS-95 scheme. In addition, a redemption policy for investment in Exchange-traded fund (ETF) units has also been approved by the board. The CBT also approved the redemption of ETF units purchased during the 2018 calendar year for booking capital gains to be included in the earnings for the purpose of calculation of the rate of interest for the 2022-23 period, the report stated. Besides this, the board gave its nod to the 69th annual report on the functioning of the EPFO for 2021-22. The report will be tabled in the parliament. The Information Security Policy of the EPFO was also cleared by the CBT along with the generic policy for the purchase of IT hardware for storage and the purchase of database licenses and server databases. As per current rules, employees with under six months of service left are entitled to withdraw accumulations only from their provident fund account. Now, as the withdrawal norms have been eased for EPS-95, it is likely to help them get a higher pension at the time of the fixation of the retirement benefit.