Provident Fund Amendment Bill Likely in Budget Session

The government is likely to introduce a Bill to amend the Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Provisions Act in the Budget session of Parliament, with the objective of bringing more workers under the social security benefit.

The government is in the process of finalising changes to the Act and the Bill could be introduced in the budget session, said Rajesh Bansal, the additional central provident fund commissioner.

The Budget session of Parliament will begin on February 23, 2015.

At present, firms which employ 20 or more employees come under the purview of Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), which administers the contributory provident fund scheme.

The Bill may propose to reduce this threshold limit from 20 employees to 10. It may also propose to reduce or waive the mandatory provident fund contributions by employees in certain cases.