Unions oppose capping EPFO trustee terms to two

Central trade unions, including RSS affiliate Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), have decided to oppose the decision to cap the number of consecutive terms to two for the trustees of the retirement fund body, EPFO.
Earlier, members of the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation's (EPFO) apex decision-making body -- the Central Board of Trustees -- headed by the labour minister were allowed to be re-appointed any number of times.
Now, a new clause inserted in Section 5 of the EPF Scheme, 1952, by the ministry provides that "an outgoing trustee or member shall be eligible for re-appointment as member of the Central Board or the Regional Committee, as the case may be, for a maximum of not more than two terms".

However, this limitation or restriction will not be for an official trustee or member. There are certain members who are on board of CBT because of their official positions like the central provident fund commissioner and the labour secretary. They hold ex-officio positions on the board.
BMS General Secretary Virjesh Upadhyay told PTI, "The government cannot impose this on the trade unions. It is for the trade unions to decide who would represent them in CBT. We will oppose this decision."
Voicing similar views, All India Trade Union Congress Secretary D L Sachdev said, "This decision in not in the spirit of the EPF & MP Act, 1952. They have amended the scheme using their executive powers, which is not appropriate."

Sachdev alleged, "They want to dilute the basic issues by bringing in inexperienced people on the board of various unions. It is for us to decide who would be a CBT member from our union. We have spoken to other trade unions like Hind Mazdoor Sabha. We will write a letter to the labour minister to oppose this unilateral decision as it was not discussed with us."
As per the scheme, a CBT member's term is for three years. EPFO has a subscriber base of over four crore and manages a corpus of over Rs 8.5 lakh crore with annual incremental deposits of over Rs 1 lakh crore.