New Delhi: EPFO, the retirement fund body on Thursday decided to provide 8.65% interest, 10 basis points higher than the 8.55% given in last year (2017-18), on the provident fund deposit for the current financial year FY19. 6 crore EPFO members will get the benefit of these development.

Labour Minister Santosh Gangwar said, "All members of the Central Board of Trustees (CBT) of EPFO at a meeting here agreed to give a higher interest for subscribers for the current fiscal.”

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The Central Board of Trustees (CBT) headed by Labour Minister is the apex decision making body of the EPFO which finalises rate of interest on PF deposits for a financial year. After approval of CBT, the proposal requires the concurrence of the Finance Ministry. The interest rate is credited into the subscribers account after the Finance Ministry's approval.

Expectations were high that the CBT would retain the PF interest rate at 8.55% for FY19 keeping the falling interest rate in the economy and benign inflation scenario. So the 8.65% interest comes as a surprise for EPFO subscribers.

Earlier, EPFO had kept the interest rate at 8.65% in 2016-17 and 8.8% in 2015-16. It gave 8.75% interest for 2013-14 as well as 2014-15. In 2012-13, the rate of interest was 8.5%.

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The CBT was supposed to decide on hiking the minimum pension under the Employee Pension Scheme (EPS) to Rs 2,000. However, there was no confirmation if the CBT took any decision on the matter.