Santosh Kumar Gangwar, Minister of State (I/C) for Labour & Employment praised the efforts of Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) to digitalize the services to accelerate the claims settlement of EPFO beneficiaries in, Provident Fund, Pension & Insurance, while inaugurating 66th foundation day celebrations of EPFO yesterday at New Delhi. He said that government is sincerely working to bring unorganized sector workers within the social security net. On this occasion, the Minister also inaugurated the online facility of “Claim Receipt Entry” at 117 District Offices of EPFO by integrating them digitally. It will help members to cut down upon long distance travels for claim submission. It will further help in checking the progress online.He further said that Pradhan Mantri Rojgar Protsahan Yojana (PMRPY) is yielding good results. Approximately 85 lakh new employees have benefitted from this scheme and government has contributed Rs. 2405 crore in the scheme. PMRPY has been launched to motivate employers for giving new employment. Government is giving 12 percent employer’s contribution (8.33% EPS+3.67% EPF) for three years on new employees. More than one crore members have been added in the fold of EPFO & ESIC in last two years. He further said that he has asked officials to implement Grievance Redressal mechanism effectively and complete all the complaints and enquiry cases regarding employees in a time bound manner.
Shri Heeralal Samariya, Secretary, Ministry of Labour and Employment informed that now employees are getting all the claims online. Employers are paying their contributions online and pensioners are getting life certificates digitally. He said that EPFO has also contributed in improving country’s ranking in ‘Ease of Doing Business’. He further said that EPFO has taken a long jump since its inception in 1952 and achieved various milestones in last 66 years.Shri Sunil Barthwal, Central Provident Fund Commissioner highlighted the initiatives and achievements of EPFO during the last one year. He said that EPFO is committed to work towards extending the reach and quality of Social Security. Digital Connectivity of district offices and facility of online returns of International Workers launched today promises further conveniences. He added that facility of online claim is widely welcomed by the employees and within one year the submission of online claim has increased from less than 5% to more than 50% and soon it will reach almost 100 percent.
The function was also marked by distribution of awards to best performing EPFO offices in 17 categories which included best performing Zonal Office, Regional Offices and District Offices. This year, the number of awards has been increased from 9 to 17 by including 3 awards for innovative and best practices and one award each for best performance in KYC seeding, PMRPY enrolment and online claim settlement. A special award was also given to the best performing office in North Eastern Regional this year. To encourage the sports persons of outstanding ability with international recognition, an award to one of the employee for excellence in International Sports was also given.The best performing offices which were awarded are Noida, Tambaram, Patna, Bharuch, Zonal Office (Chennai & Puducherry), District Office Tirupur, Haldwani, Gurugram, Durgapur, Udupi, Agartala.The best performing IT team, Portfolio Manager, Exempted trust namely ADC-MIS Team Secunderabad, UTI AMC Ltd and M/s Maihar Cement Employees’ Provident Fund Trust respectively were also awarded.Central Board of Trustees of EPFO and senior officials of the Ministry were also present on the occasion.