Examine the evolution of India's Employees' Pension Scheme and assess whether it adequately protects low-wage retirees.

The Employees' Pension Scheme (EPS), 1995, carved out of the employer's contribution under the EPF & Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952, is India's largest statutory pension for organised-sector workers. Its evolution shows steady widening of coverage, but far slower improvement in the adequacy of the pension actually received.

Evolution of the Scheme

• Design: EPS is a "Defined Contribution–Defined Benefit" scheme, funded by the employer's 8.33% of wages plus a Central Government share of 1.16% of wages [3].
• Coverage threshold: the mandatory wage ceiling moved from ₹6,500 (2001) to ₹15,000 (September 2014) [2], and now to ₹25,000 per month, bringing over 51 lakh additional employees under statutory PF, pension and insurance cover [1].
• Benefit floor: a minimum pension of ₹1,000 per month was introduced from 01.09.2014, sustained through additional budgetary support [3].
• Rationale of the 2026 hike: aligning the framework with rising wages and pushing formalisation of employment [1].

Assessing adequacy for low-wage retirees

• The ₹1,000 floor has remained unrevised since 2014, while prices have risen — real protection has eroded [3].
• The Government's 1.16% share is payable on wages only up to ₹15,000 [3]; unless extended to the new ceiling, the added pension promise rests largely on employers.
• Revisions are discretionary, not rule-based — twelve years separated the last two ceiling changes [2], so exclusion re-emerges silently between decisions.
• Coverage itself remains narrow: with the overwhelming majority of India's workforce in informal employment, and global coverage counted merely as "at least one benefit" [4], statutory pension reaches a minority of retirees.

The wage-ceiling hike is a genuine advance in reach, but adequacy needs a second step: an indexed minimum pension, a periodic statutory review cycle, and extension of the Government's share to the revised ceiling. Coupled with the Code on Social Security, 2020, this would make EPS a real instrument of dignified old age under Article 41's directive.