Monday, December 12 2005 17:24 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Kolkata: The Forward Bloc, a supporting party of the UPA government from outside, today (Dec 12, 2005) said it was not satisfied with the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's statement yesterday ruling out budgetary support to retain the EPF interest at 9.5 per cent for the current year and asserted the Left parties would not accept the cutting the EPF rate to 8.5 percent 'at any cost'.

"We are not satisfied with the statement of Prime Minister. It was the Prime Minister who himself had given assurance earlier at the meeting of the Left-UPA Co-oridnation Committee that he would look into the Left parties' demand to retain the interest rate at 9.5 per cent for the current year", the Forward Bloc general secretary Debabrata Biswas told sources here.

"There is no question of accepting it at any cost. What was decided last year should be retained. It was upto to the government to mop up resources to meet it", he said.

"It is a question of providing social security to crores of organised sector labourers.", the FB leader said.

The Left trade unions yesterday announced country-wide protests on December 20 and threatened to intensify it if the Government does not accede to their demands.