Mumbai: The government has approved the proposal of bringing industries with ten or more employees under the purview of the Employee's Provident Fund (EPF) Act, against the earlier limit of 20 or more employees.

A meeting of the board of trustees of employee provident funds under the chairmanship of the minister of labour and employment Oscar Fernandes, however, decided to defer a decision on revision in the rate of interest of the EPF corpus fund for the year 2008-09.

The reconstituted central board of trustees of the employees provident fund (EPF), at its first meeting, approved a reduction of threshold limit for coverage of establishment under the Employees' Provident Fund & Miscellaneous Provisions Act (EPF & MP Act), 1952.

With this, the threshold limit would be reduced from 20 to 10 in respect of all industrial establishments and from 50 to 20 in respect of cooperative institutions working without any aid of power.

The second Labour Commission and the Standing Committee on Labour had also recommended reducing the threshold limit in order to reduce the gap between coverage under Provident Fund Act and the total workforce of the country.

The social security benefits provided under the Employees State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) Act are already applicable to the establishments having employment of 10 or above.

The current move would bring parity with ESI Act with regard to coverage and would help in unifying social security efforts of the government. It will also help channelise the registration of establishments and members of both ESIC and EPFO, a government release said.