Fernandes said that the EPF had constituted a sub-committee to assess the Board’s finances. The report of the committee, placed before the meeting for deliberation, found that there would be a surplus of Rs 595 crore with the board.

The decision to retain 8.5 per cent interest will put a burden of Rs 450 crore on the EPF fund but sources said that the deficit could be offset from a surplus of Rs 590 crore lying in the Interest Suspense Account, Contingency Reserve and Special Reserve Fund. The Board will submit its recommendations to the finance ministry, which is expected to notify the rate shortly.

Even after paying 8.5 per cent interest rate, the fund would be having a surplus of Rs 83 crore. The EPF has a corpus of Rs 94,000 crore including pension fund.

The total interest outgo for financial year 2006-07 will be approximately Rs 7,800 crore, Fernandes said, adding that the decision pertaining to interest payment for the current fiscal will be decided later. Referring to the demand of trade unions to pay higher interest rate, he said the board had fixed the interest rate only for the previous year.

Since the bank rates have gone up mainly this year, the board can consider revising interest rate for 2007-08 later, he said. Fernandes said the board also discussed the government’s suggestion to invest 5 per cent of the corpus in the stock market but no decision was taken.

However, representatives of the Left-affiliated trade unions rejected the decision of the board, while demanding at least 9.5 per cent interest rate. “At a time when banks are paying even up to 10.5 per cent interest rate annually, government should come forward to support the board to pay 9.5 per cent interest rate by raising administrative rate of interest on Special Deposit Scheme (SDS),” said United Trade Union Centre Lenin-Sarani General Secretary Sankar Sen.

Meet on indirect taxes from today

New Delhi: Top tax officials from all over the country will discuss ways to strengthen the indirect tax machinery and measures to improve compliance at a two-day conference to be inaugurated by finance minister P Chidambaram here on Tuesday. The All India Annual Conference of chief commissioners and directors general of customs and central excise will deliberate on dispute resolution, Goods and Service tax and emerging challenges before customs, among other things. The conference will act as a catalyst for providing important contribution to strengthening the Indirect Tax administration, it said.

During the the first quarter of the current fiscal, the government has collected Rs 48,732 crore through customs and excise duties, up 12.7 per cent from Rs 43,237 crore collected in the same period last year.