New Delhi. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman emphasized in the Rajya Sabha on Monday that the proposed 8.1 percent interest rate on Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) is the same as the interest rates on other small savings schemes. and its amendment is based on the realities of the present times. The Finance Minister, in response to the discussion on the Appropriation Bills in the House, said that the Central Board of EPFO decides the interest rate on provident fund deposits and the board itself has proposed to reduce the PF rate to 8.1 percent for the financial year 2021-22. Have given.
“The EPFO has a central board which decides at what rate the interest is to be given, and they haven’t changed it for a long time… they have changed it now… 8.1 per cent,” he said.
The Finance Minister said that the EPFO has called for keeping the interest rate at 8.1 percent, while the rates available in other schemes including Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana (7.6 percent), Senior Citizen Savings Scheme (7.4 percent) and PPF (7.1 percent) are very low. . He said that the valuation of the insurance company Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) has been done in a scientific manner and the same has been disclosed in the prospectus submitted with SEBI for the IPO.
It’s a decision taken by Central Board in which representatives of the various segments which are part of the EPFO are all seated in the board, inclusive of workers representatives, mgmt representatives, Govt representatives. They have taken this call to bring it down to 8.1%: FM
— ANI (@ANI) March 21, 2022
The Finance Minister said that the share of states in the central taxes is estimated to be Rs 8.17 lakh crore in 2022-23 and an amount of Rs 7.45 lakh crore in the revised estimate for the current financial year has already been released. He said that in the supplementary demand for grants, a proposal of Rs 5,000 crore has been made for infusion of capital in public sector insurance companies. Referring to the supplementary demands for grants for 2021-22, the Finance Minister said that the government has asked for fertilizer subsidy, additional funds for infusion of capital in National Bank for Financing Infrastructure and Development (NABARD).
Apart from this, many works were done faster than expected, which required spending of that time, he said. He said that a major part of the amount was done for providing benefits of the schemes to the common people. He said that the government had itself borne the burden of high cost of urea and did not pass the burden on the farmers. Nirmala Sitharaman denied that the government has delayed in seeking parliamentary approval for the additional expenditure incurred in the financial year 2018-19.
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He made this remark in response to the discussion in the House on the supplementary demands for grants for the financial year 2021-22 and the demands for additional grants for the financial year 2018-19. During the discussion, the members had said that the government has now presented the demands for additional grants for 2018-19.
The Finance Minister said that the matter was with the Public Accounts Committee and had asked the government to seek approval from Parliament to regularize this additional expenditure.
He said the government had received the committee’s report in February 2021 and the government was given time till June 2022 to take its approval. Following his reply, the House returned the relevant Appropriation Bills. Lok Sabha has already passed them. (agency)