The Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has decided to retain an 8.5 percent rate of interest on the provident fund deposits.

The decision was taken by advisory body to the organisation- Central Board of Trustees (CBT), chaired by Union Labour Minister, M. Mallikarjun Kharge, in a meeting held on Saturday, July 6.

It is expected that after payout of the interest at a rate of 8.5 percent, which is in order of Rs 1.82 crore, the organisation will be left with a surplus of Rs 6.4 crores.

The expected income of the EPFO during the current fiscal is around Rs 12,994 crores. Last fiscal the organisation was burdened with a Rs 139-crore deficit and was made up by dipping Rs 150 crore into the contingency fund.

The organisation has a base of 4.5 crore subscribers and is the second largest financial institution in India (after LIC) in terms of the corpus managed by it. The organisation, under the Labour Ministry has an invested sum of about Rs 2, 00,000 crores.

As compared to EPFO, the deposit rates offered by banks are comparatively low, with the largest PSB, State Bank of India, offering interest at a rate of 7 percent on one year deposits and at 7.25 percent on 3-yr deposits.