Hike in PF pension into consideration of Cabinet: Minister

Union Labour Minister Mansukh Mandaviya instructed a gathering of the Central Board of Trustees (CBT) of the Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) in New Delhi on Monday (October 13, 2025) that the Cabinet was actively contemplating growing the minimal PF pension.

Though the problem was not in agenda, commerce union members within the CBT stated through the discussions that the minimal PF pension needs to be revised from the current quantity of ₹1,000 a month. “The Minister didn’t rule it out and stated the Cabinet is actively contemplating the proposal,” a CBT member instructed The Hindu after the assembly.

The assembly additionally mentioned the problem of delay in distributing greater pension as per the Supreme Court order. Against the background of varied High Court orders, some CBT members representing employees argued that the EPFO should withdraw the rules framed on the matter and urged that new tips needs to be carried out in tune with the highest court docket order. “The response was not constructive,” one other member stated.

The Labour Ministry, in a launch, stated the assembly took a lot of path-breaking selections, together with simplification and liberalisation of the EPF partial withdrawal provisions. “To improve ease of residing for EPF members, CBT determined to simplify the partial withdrawal provisions of the EPF scheme by merging 13 advanced provisions right into a single, streamlined rule categorised into three sorts, particularly, Essential Needs (sickness, training, marriage), Housing Needs, and Special Circumstances. Now, members will be capable to withdraw as much as 100% of the eligible steadiness within the Provident Fund, together with worker and employer shares,” the Ministry stated.

Withdrawal limits have additionally been liberalised — training withdrawals will probably be allowed as much as 10 occasions and marriage as much as 5 occasions (from the prevailing restrict of a complete of three partial withdrawals for marriage and training in all). “The requirement of minimal service has been uniformly diminished to solely 12 months for all partial withdrawals,” it added.

The assembly additionally determined to launch the ‘Vishwas Scheme’ to cut back litigation by means of rationalised penal damages. “One of the key causes for litigations has been the imposition of damages for belated remittances of PF dues. As of May 2025, excellent penal damages stand at ₹2,406 crore, with over 6,000 instances pending throughout boards together with High Courts, CGITs, and Supreme Court. Further, practically 21,000 potential litigation instances are pending beneath EPFO’s e-proceedings portal,” the Ministry stated.

The CBT accredited signing an MoU with the India Post Payments Bank (IPPB) to offer doorstep Digital Life Certificate (DLC) providers to EPS’95 pensioners at a price of ₹50 per certificates, totally borne by the EPFO. As a part of the EPFO 3.0, the CBT accredited a complete member-centric digital transformation framework to modernise provident fund providers. The assembly additionally accredited the collection of 4 fund managers — SBI Funds Management Limited, HDFC AMC Ltd., Aditya Birla Sun Life AMC Ltd., and UTI AMC Ltd. — for managing the debt portfolio of the EPFO for a interval of 5 years.