The Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation on Friday said the number of auto transfers generated by the retirement fund body has increased threefold from two lakh in April 2024 to six lakh in May 2024 while more than 25 lakh advance claims have been settled on auto mode.
Labour secretary Sumita Dawra took a review meeting on reforms in EPFO on Thursday evening during which the outcome of some of the reform measures taken by EPFO were highlighted.
“The review meeting highlighted the need for the expansion of social security and new initiatives for ease of living and ease of business,” labour and employment ministry said in a statement, adding that the secretary Dawra urged EPFO officials to work in close coordination for an effective social security system.
According to a statement issued by the labour ministry, more than 50% of the illness claims settled by EPFO have been settled on auto mode. “This has increased claims settlement speed and a large number of them are now being settled within three days,” it said.
Besides, the retirement fund body has done away with the requirement of uploading the cheque book or passbook of bank accounts for the know your customer (KYC) Aadhaar linked accounts by members while applying for claims, thus eliminating the scrutiny requirement in almost 13 lakh claims in the last one month, it said.
“EPFO has also reduced and rationalised the remarks for easy comprehension of the members for return of incomplete cases and rejection of ineligible cases,thereby improving the ease of living for millions of its subscribers.
For speedy disposal of claims, auto EPFO has recently extended the facility of claiming advances of up to one lakh for illness, education, marriage and housing.
The advance auto claim settlement facility for up to Rs 50,000 was available for illness since 2020 and recently this was doubled to Rs 1 lakh.
Besides, EPFO is in the process of revamping its application software with the UAN based single accounting system for each member and automation of process flow with minimum human intervention for faster settlement of claims.
The new software is being developed with the consultation of Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC).
