New Delhi: Subscribers of the Staff’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), the state-run retirement fund supervisor, can have faster entry to their financial savings deposits by way of ATM withdrawal amenities, an official mentioned.
Prepared withdrawal of provident fund financial savings as much as a sure ceiling with an EPFO account-linked ATM card is amongst a number of options to be rolled out seemingly by January 2025, in response to the official cited above.
Provident funds present retirement revenue for almost all salaried Indians within the formal sector, with almost 70 million subscribers. These funds usually function the first corpus for the lifetime financial savings of working individuals.
“We’ve got reviewed all the info know-how system of the EPFO and are making substantial updates. Our purpose is to have an IT system similar to world banking programs,” mentioned union labour secretary Sumitra Dawra on the sidelines of the World Financial Coverage Discussion board 2024 final week.
In accordance with knowledge primarily based on transactions by way of the brand new system, the continuing overhaul of the EPFO, together with a brand new superior software program platform, has improved its beforehand sluggish customer support.
The infrastructure improve, known as EPFO 2.01, goals to hurry up transactions, cut back declare rejections, and shorten turnaround instances.
“For the convenience of residing of claimants, beneficiaries, and insured individuals, we’re working to make sure they will entry their claims from an ATM with minimal human intervention,” Dawra mentioned.
The financial savings rate of interest provided by EPFO, set at 8.25% for FY24, is a broadly watched metric among the many salaried center class.
“The state-run retirement fund supervisor has usually confronted complaints from staff, as claims are sometimes rejected when the knowledge within the EPFO database doesn’t match the small print supplied by a member, attributable to inconsistencies in info such because the common account quantity (UAN), identify, date of beginning, or checking account particulars,” mentioned an official.
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Reforms presently being carried out embrace centralised declare settlements, end-to-end auto-processing, centralised month-to-month pension disbursements, UAN-based accounting, and a restructured digital challan-cum-receipt (ECR) with due statements and remittance challans, the official added.
Members can now entry their provident fund paperwork by way of Digilocker, a cloud-storage app, and file claims by way of the federal government’s Umang app. Pensioners can even add digital life certificates to proceed their advantages.
“The revamped processes have already enabled the EPFO to difficulty pension fee orders on the primary day of retirement. Moreover, members can now view their account deposits on-line. The overhaul has additionally allowed the EPFO to cut back the typical closing time for member appeals to simply six days,” mentioned the official.
