The government is considering amendments to Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) provisions to make it applicable to every establishment in which ten or more persons are employed, Rajya Sabha was informed on Wednesday.
Replying to the starred question, Minister of State for Labour and Employment Bandaru Dattatreya said, “At present, these provisions are applicable only to establishments which employ 20 or more people.”
Maintaining that it wanted to provide wider coverage to EPF provisions, Dattatreya said the government is also committed to providing social security to those in the unorganised sector and referred to a pilot project for rickshaw pullers as an initiative to spread social security benefits on a wider scale.
Dattatreya was speaking after members raised a question relating to the problems of social security cover for them.
Some members raised questions like that even government establishments were employing only contract labour while some others spoke of the meagre salaries paid to contract labour.
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The minister assured members that if any violation of the prescribed laws come to his attention, he would press for action.
PTI