The gross addition of new subscribers to the retirement fund body – EPFO – declined by over 4% to 10.9 million in 2023-24 compared to a year ago, a report by the Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation (MoSPI) said.

The report titled ‘Payroll Reporting in India: An Employment Perspective January to April, 2024′, said the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) recorded a 10,993,119 gross addition of new members in 2023-24 compared to 11,498,453 in 2022-23.

However, the report said the gross addition of new members was affected due to the pandemic and declined from 11,040,683 in 2019-20 to 8,548,898 in 2020-21. It bounced back to 10,865,063 in 2021-22.

The data shows that in the last five fiscal years till 2023-24, the addition of gross new members by EFPO had not recovered to pre-Covid level of 2018-19. The gross addition of new members was 13,944,349 in 2018-19.

The numbers of subscribers are from various sources and there are elements of overlap. Therefore, the estimates from various sources are not additive, it stated.

The report also showed that the gross addition of members of Employees’ State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) also dipped to 16,760,672 in 2023-24 from 16,773,023 in 2022-23.

However, according to the report, the new addition of subscribers increased under NPS to 937,020 in 2023-24 from 8,4,735 in 2022-23.

Notably on Friday, the Central government amended the Employees Pension Scheme (EPS), 1995 giving withdrawal benefits for employees with less than six months of service.

The amendment is touted to benefit more than 7 lakh EPS members who leave the scheme with less than six months of contributory service.

The Centre has also modified Table D to ensure that the service for every month is taken into account and withdrawal benefits are given in proportion to the service provided. Table D refers to the members who have not offered the required service for the scheme’s eligibility or the members attaining 58 years of age.

The amount that can be withdrawn will now depend on the months a member has completed the service and the wages on which the EPS contribution was received.