Retirement fund body EPFO settled 1.08 crore claims, including PF withdrawal and transfer, during April-January period this fiscal and 90 per cent of these were disposed of in less than 20 days of receipt.
During a recent review of the performance of Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) by its Central Provident Fund Commissioner K K Jalan, it was noted that the body settled 11.05 lakh claims in January and out of these 93 per cent were settled in 20 days.
"..The total claim settlement for 2014-15 stood at 1.08 crore by January end. 91 per cent of these claims were settled within 20 days as per the new standards being set by it," a statement said.
According to the statement, the EPFO was able to settle more than 11,000 grievances in the month of January alone. EPFO has also opened its first Special Corporate Office at Bandra, Mumbai to offer priority service to big and promptly complying establishments. It would be a carved out of the existing Regional Office, but would enjoy a high degree of functional autonomy.
It was also noted during the review that the preliminary report of the actuary appointed for actuarial valuation of the Employees' Pension Scheme fund revealed that the deficit has come down drastically and is less than 2.5 per cent of the total liability.
Similarly, the actuarial report of the Employees' Deposit Linked Insurance Scheme report revealed that with the available corpus, there can be further additions to the benefits provided under the Scheme for which several options are being mulled by the EPFO.
A special facility has been launched on EPFO's website in the members' portal to enable members to identify and trace out their old accounts marked as inoperative.
This initiative is expected to empower the members to initiate the process to transfer their past PF accumulations to their current account.
