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Informist, Monday, Jan. 5, 2026

 

NEW DELHI – The Supreme Court on Monday asked the government and the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation to decide in four months on a public interest litigation seeking revision of the existing basic salary ceiling of INR 15,000 for enrollment under the Employees' Provident Fund scheme. The Bench of Justice J. K. Maheshwari and Justice A. S. Chandurkar allowed the petitioner, Naveen Prakash Nautiyal, to submit a representation of the petition to the Centre and the EPFO within two weeks for them to take a decision.

 

Currently, all employees with basic pay up to INR 15,000 are required to contribute to the Employees' Provident Fund. However, beyond this limit, employees' provident fund contributions are optional for those who joined after Sept. 1, 2014. The Employees' Provident Fund wage ceiling for mandatory enrolment was last revised in 2014, when it was increased from INR 6,500 to INR 15,000 per month.

 

The petitioner said that the wage ceiling has been revised inconsistently, sometimes after 13 to 14 years, without any fixed periodicity or linkage to relevant economic indicators such as inflation, minimum wages, per capita income, or the consumer price index. This erratic approach has led to the exclusion of large sections of the workforce, contrary to the objective of providing social security to employees in the organised sector, the petitioner, a social activist, said. The Public Accounts Committee of the 16th Lok Sabha and the EPFO's subcommittee had both recommended periodic and rational revision of the ceiling. However, the Centre has not acted on the recommendations despite approval by the organisation's central board, the petitioner said.

 

In December, Labour and Employment Minister Mansukh Mandaviya, responding to a question in Lok Sabha, said that any decision to revise the employees' provident fund ceiling must undergo extensive stakeholder consultations. "Raising the wage ceiling for coverage under EPFO is done based on extensive stakeholders' consultations, including trade unions and industry associations, as the same will have an impact on the take-home salary of employees and on the hiring cost for employers," Mandaviya had said.  End

 

Reported by Surya Tripathi

Edited by Saji George Titus

 

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