Union budget may boost take-home salaries: UNWELCOME MOVE

Union budget may boost take-home salaries: The Union Budget 2016-17 is likely to announce measures to put more money into the hands of employees with a monthly income up to a certain threshold, like Rs.10,000, for instance, by doing away with



My VIEW:

February12, 2016
Unwelcome move
This refers to the report “Union budget may boost take-home salaries” (The Hindu, February 12). On the face of it, the proposal to discontinue recovery of provident fund contribution from the wages of employees with low income would appear a worker-friendly initiative, putting more money in the employees’ pockets. In effect, the move reduces the corpus intended to take care of the employee’s retired life by half. As there
are no social security systems of the kind available in developed countries, workers in the organised sector get protected to some extent by their savings through PF contribution. It is cruel on the part of government to lure them by promise of more take-home pay by reducing their forced savings for a genuine purpose. 
Such a gesture to reduce employees’ contribution should be made only where employers are able to compensate by increasing their contribution to PF to the extent employees’ contribution is reduced.
Ethically, smuggling such drastic measures through budget proposals, which get through without adequate informed discussion in compelling circumstances, should not be an option. This happened in the case of withdrawal of Defined Payment-based Pension Scheme and now the same mistake is likely to be repeated. Legislative processes should not be skipped for administrative expediency or on grounds of political compulsions.
M G Warrier, Mumbai




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