Since the lockdown was initiated in March, data from the Ministry of Labour has revealed that over 6,50,000 people have tapped into their Employee Provident Fund (EPF) accounts to meet daily expenditure.
As many as 30,000-35,000 individuals are withdrawing from their accounts every day in April.
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Under the newly facilitated pandemic rules, a total of Rs 2,700 crores has been withdrawn to date, according to data from the Employees’ Provident Fund Organization (EPFO).
This includes both retirement funds as well as money managed individually by companies under the PF accounts.
This has been observed across the board with not only small companies but also blue-chip companies.
Amongst the public sector companies, the Neyveli Lignite Corporation has topped the list.
“Construction, road transport, logistics, IT, manufacturing…all have lost businesses. The income loss is huge and people must have dipped into their PF money. It’s not the ideal situation and will hamper their retirement corpus, but when there is income loss, people will do whatever possible. It also shows that governments have not reached out to the working class the way it should have during a pandemic,” said K.R. Shyamsundar, a labour economist.
“It’s not just confined to Delhi. It is across India. It is time the government reaches out to the working class which pays tax, helps industries gain productivity, but suffers most when situations turn bad. Their jobs are at stake and millions are facing a wage cut,” added Shyamsundar.