NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India’s pension fund body on Tuesday recommended marginally increasing the interest rate on deposits with it to 8.15% for the current financial year from 8.1% in the previous year, the labour ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
Last year’s interest rate was the lowest in nearly 25 years.
The interest rate would be officially notified in the government gazette after the finance ministry’s approval.
The rate for the 2022/23 year ending March 31 was recommended after a meeting between the labour ministry and the central board of trustees of the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO).
“The recommended rate of interest of 8.15% safeguards the surplus as well as guarantees increased income to members,” the labour ministry said.
The EPFO, which has a fund corpus of nearly 17 trillion rupees ($206.85 billion), saw a year-on-year income growth of more than 16%, it said.
($1 = 82.1850 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Sarita Chaganti Singh; Writing by Sudipto Ganguly; Editing by Christopher Cushing and Raju Gopalakrishnan)