The Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) under Ministry of Labour and Employment has launched Multi-location claim settlement facility. This new facility has replaced the old using system of geographical jurisdiction for claim process. On current pandemic crisis COVID 19, multi-location claim facility tends to improve service delivery and ensure social security for its more than 6 crore subscribers.
Reason Behind the Novel Initiative
- 135 regional offices of EPFO have been affected at various levels of severity due to COVID 19 in several areas.
- Many offices in Metropolitan and other severely affected locations such as Mumbai, Thane, Haryana and Chennai zones operated with minimal staff on account of the pandemic.
- This facility will allow EPFO offices to settle online claims from any of its regional offices, across the country and all types of online claims – provident fund, pension, partial withdrawal and claims and transfer claims can be processed under this novel initiative.
- Other offices, working with 50% workforce and with the help of recently introduced auto settlement mode could bring the claim settlement period down to 3 days for COVID-19 advances.
- This will allow offices with the lesser workload to share the accumulated pendency nationwide, hence allowing for optimum Utilisation of the EPFO workforce.
First Initiative under the Project
- The first batch of multi-location claims under this project was settled for Gurugram region on June 10, 2020.
- The claims of employees pertaining to the regional office of Gurugram Region were settled by EPFO staff deployed in Chandigarh, Ludhiana and Jalandhar offices.
- After settlement, the payment was made from the Gurugram office to the bank account of the individual member.
About EPFO :
The Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation is under the administrative control of the Ministry of Labour and Employment, Government of India.It is an organization tasked to assist the Central Board of Trustees, Employees’ Provident Fund a statutory body formed by the Employees’ Provident Fund and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952.
Headquarter – New Delhi
Central Provident Fund Commissioner (CPFC) – Sunil Barthwal
