Pune:
Small Headline: Provident Fund: The saving grace
City: Pune
ByLine: Imtiaz Jaleel
With an increasing number of people losing jobs due to recession, the Provident Fund office in Pune is flooded with applications of withdrawals.
For many, this is their only saving, the one they have to dig into for survival.
Sunil Chavan worked in house keeping of a software company for over three years till he was laid off two months ago. Now all that Chavan has is Rs 18,000 in provident fund savings.
",I have to pay rent for the last two months to my landlord and I can do that only after getting this money,", said Sunil.
Provident fund amount is generally saved for retirement. But hundreds of workers who have been laid off are now being forced to bank on these very savings for survival.
The Pune PF office handles the accounts of over 19 lakh workers.
The average applications for withdrawal used to be about 10,000 a month, but since September 2008, the office started getting around 30,000 applications. The figure went over 40,000 in February 2009, almost four times the number in 2008.
",They are mostly contract workers and those with white-collar jobs who the companies had recruited with an eye on growth plans. The retrenchment in that sector has been big,", said H P Srivastav, Deccan Chamber of Commerce.
For many, PF is their only saving and therefore the only fall back option during these very trying times.
City: Pune
ByLine: Imtiaz Jaleel
With an increasing number of people losing jobs due to recession, the Provident Fund office in Pune is flooded with applications of withdrawals.
For many, this is their only saving, the one they have to dig into for survival.
Sunil Chavan worked in house keeping of a software company for over three years till he was laid off two months ago. Now all that Chavan has is Rs 18,000 in provident fund savings.
",I have to pay rent for the last two months to my landlord and I can do that only after getting this money,", said Sunil.
Provident fund amount is generally saved for retirement. But hundreds of workers who have been laid off are now being forced to bank on these very savings for survival.
The Pune PF office handles the accounts of over 19 lakh workers.
The average applications for withdrawal used to be about 10,000 a month, but since September 2008, the office started getting around 30,000 applications. The figure went over 40,000 in February 2009, almost four times the number in 2008.
",They are mostly contract workers and those with white-collar jobs who the companies had recruited with an eye on growth plans. The retrenchment in that sector has been big,", said H P Srivastav, Deccan Chamber of Commerce.
For many, PF is their only saving and therefore the only fall back option during these very trying times.
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