Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday said around 12 lakh members of the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation had withdrawn a total of Rs 3,360 crore from their retirement savings during the lockdown.

On March 28, the EPFO had allowed formal sector workers to withdraw a non-refundable advance from their retirement savings to deal with the hardships of the lockdown, which had begun three days earlier.

These 12 lakh claims were settled under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana package, which provided for the special withdrawal.

The non-refundable withdrawal was allowed to the extent of a member’s basic wages and dearness allowances for three months, or up to 75 per cent of the amount standing to a member’s credit in the EPF account, whichever was less.

Sitharaman also said that 2.2 crore building and construction workers got Rs 3,950 crore under the Garib Kalyan Yojana during the lockdown period. On March 24, labour minister Santosh Gangwar had asked all the states and Union Territories to provide financial aid to the 3.5 crore registered construction workers from the Rs 52,000-crore construction cess available with them.

An advisory Gangwar had issued to all the chief ministers and lieutenant governors said: “Under Section 60 of the Building and Other Construction Workers (BOCW) Act, 1996, all states/UTs have been advised to transfer funds in the account of construction workers through DBT (direct benefit transfer) mode from the cess fund collected by the Labour Welfare Boards under the BOCW cess Act.”

The letter stressed the need to devise mechanisms to support unorganised workers who sustain their livelihood on daily wages. It added that the state building and construction workers’ welfare boards had collected sufficient funds.