Govt considers low cost home schemes for EPFO subscribers

Government is working on a scheme to provide low cost housing schemes to over 5 crore subscribers of retirement fund body EPFO, Parliament was informed. “Government is exploring the possibility for providing low cost homes for subscribers of Employees’ Pension Fund. It is in preliminary discussion stage,” said Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya in a written reply to Lok Sabha. It was in context to a question that whether the government or EPFO has introduced/proposed to introduce a scheme to allow its subscribers to pledge their PF contribution to buy low cost houses. Last year, the proposal was listed on the agenda of Employees Provident Fund Organisation’s trustees fund which was to allow its subscribers to pledge their PF contribution to buy low cost houses where they will get advance from their PF accumulation and will be allowed to pledge their future PF contribution as EMI payment. Under the proposed scheme, there will be a tripartite agreement with the member bank and EPFO for pledging future contribution as EMI payment. “It was suggested that the benefits under the Ministry of Housing and Poverty Alleviation can also be extended for the beneficiaries of the scheme,” reported by PTI. However, the panel suggested that this scheme is only for low income formal workers who are EPFO subscribers and could not buy house during their service period.