Minimum Pension under Employees' Pension Scheme (EPS), 1995

The Government has notified a minimum pension of Rs. 1000/- per month to the pensioners under Employees’ Pension Scheme (EPS), 1995 vide Notification No. G.S.R. 593 (E), dated 19th August, 2014 effective from 01.09.2014 for the year 2014-15 which is continued beyond March, 2015 without any break. 

However, no proposal is under consideration of the Government at present for providing inflation-linked Dearness Allowance (DA) to pensioners of EPS, 1995. The issue of index-linking of pension by fully neutralizing inflation was considered by the Expert Committee constituted by the Government in the year 2009 for review of EPS, 1995 and the same was found not feasible in the case of a funded scheme like EPS, 1995 wherein the contribution of the employer and Government is at a fixed rate of 8.33 per cent and 1.16 per cent respectively. Therefore, the value of benefits cannot be left open-ended by linking it with inflation which is variable. 

This information given by Shri Bandaru Dattatreya, the Minister of State (IC) for Labour and Employment, in reply to a question in Rajya Sabha today.