NEW DELHI: The crucial twoday meeting of the EPFO’s Central Board of Trustees, which is to declare the EPF rate of interest on the retirement corpus for 2022-23, will begin in the national capital on Monday.
In March 2022, the government had declared 8. 1% EPF rate for 2021-22, the lowest level since 1977-78. It is expected that the interest levels will be maintained at par.
The declara tion of interest comes at a time when government had said interest applicable for 2021-22 is still being credited and was a bout 98% complete till March 6. The delay in EPF interest cred its was attributed to a software upgrade necessitated by the introduction of TDS on annual EPF contributions of over Rs 2. 5 lakh.
Apart from the declaration of interest rates, the meeting assumes significance since the pension fund manager will present a status note on the Supreme Court’s November 4, 2022 judgment regarding pension on higher wages, an issue that has led to considerable angst among exsisting and prospective pensioners as a result of procedural complexities in the application process.
In its meeting of the Pension Impleme ntation and EDLI Committee (PIEC) on March 15, EPFO had decided to issue a set of FAQs to “demystify” the apex court judgment and its implications on pensioners. However, des pite the extension of last date of application to May 3, the EPFO has still not issued the detailed explainer, nor clarified the method of deposit or computation of pension. Other agenda items include, among other things, a presentation of the retirement fund manager’s revised budget estimates for 2022-23 and budget estimates for 2023-24 for EPFO and the schemes fu nded by it. This comes in the backdrop of PIEC’s expression of concern in the March 15meeting over the labour ministry’s submission to a parliamentary panel that its budget estimates for 2023-24 were prepared without factoring in the implications of the apex court’s judgment, also as this may impact the EPFO rate of interest for 2022-23.
A report of the standing committee on labour tabled in Parliament this month said the ministry told the House panel that the implications of the judgment had not been factored in to the BE 2023-24 allocation.
In a subsequent Action Ta ken Report by the labour ministry, it has said the fund manager has seen a “significant drop” in EPFO’s acturial deficit as a result of the improvement of the quality of data with respect to the members of EPS-95.

Israel PM Netanyahu fires defense minister who dissented on court plan

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday fired Defence Minister Yoav Galant a day after he broke ranks, citing security concerns in calling for a pause to the government’s controversial judicial reforms, reported AFP.

WASHINGTON: Recent stress in the banking sector and the possibility of a follow-on credit crunch brings the US closer to recession, Minneapolis Fed president Neel Kashkari said Sunday in comments to CBS show Face the Nation.
“It definitely brings us closer,” Kashkari said. “What’s unclear for us is how much of these banking stresses are leading to a widespread credit crunch. That credit crunch … would then slow down the economy. This is something we are monitoring very, very closely.”
Kashkari, who has been among the most hawkish Fed policymakers in advocating higher interest rates to fight inflation, said it remained too soon to gauge the size of the “imprint” bank stress will have on the economy, and therefore too soon to know how it might influence the next interest rate decision of the Federal Open Market Committee.
The Fed raised interest rates a quarter of a point this week but opened the door to pause further increases until it is clear how bank lending practices may change following the recent collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank and New York-based Signature Bank.
“Right now the stresses are only a couple of weeks old,” Kashkari said. “There are some concerning signs. On the positive side is deposit outflows seem to have slowed down. Some confidence is being restored among smaller and regional banks.”
“At the same time,” he continued, “we’ve seen that capital markets have largely been closed for the past two weeks. If those capital markets remain closed because borrowers and lenders remain nervous, then that would tell me, okay, this is probably going to have a bigger impact on the economy. So it’s too soon to make any forecasts about the next FOMC meeting.”
The Fed has rolled out an emergency lending program meant to keep other regional lenders from trouble should deposit withdrawals increase. Recent data showed money moving from smaller to larger banks in the days following SVB’s March 10 collapse, though Fed chair Jerome Powell said last week he thought the situation had “stabilized.”
Congress this week holds its first hearings on the SVB failure, which has sparked calls for tighter supervision of mid-sized banks, prompted the Fed to launch its own internal review of bank supervision, and led to calls for a broadening of the federal government’s deposit insurance program.