EPFO disbursed Rs. 47,630 crore as member benefits and Rs. 8,200 crore as monthly pensions in 2015-16

EPFO disbursed Rs. 47,630 crore as member benefits and Rs. 8,200 crore as monthly pensions in 2015-16 

In 2015-16, EPFO disbursed approximately Rs. 47,630 crore as member benefits and Rs. 8,200 crore as monthly pensions. 

To monitor the status of enrolment of contractual employees especially in municipalities, EPFO has taken steps towards putting in place a system where principal employers including government bodies who enroll workers directly or through contractors can view details of contractors including the amount paid towards PF dues on real time basis. Now, EPFO will be in a position to compare the PF dues reimbursed to contractors and the PF dues actually remitted by contractors. Mismatch in the amounts would indicate possible specific evasion that can be followed up towards seeking compliance. A facility already exists in public domain wherein all principal employers can check the amounts remitted by contactors’ establishments. Any person through this report can also check if her / his name appears in the list of employees submitted by contractor to EPFO on a monthly basis. EPFO is also in the process of digitizing compliance reporting system. It is expected that reporting in Compliance area shall be online and real time by the second quarter of this financial year. 

The process of seeding EPS pensioners’ data with Aadhaar is underway in EPFO. While seeding the data, it has been noticed that in certain cases there is data mismatch between EPF data and Aadhaar data in respect of date of birth and name of pensioner. To rectify it, pensioners / members are being advised to correct either their details provided to EPFO offices or to correct the details given in Aadhaar, whichever is correct. 

It is also seen that a number of online transfer applications by members are pending with the employers for attestation and verification of member details by the employers Field offices of EPFO have been directed to take up the matter with employers to clear this on priority. 

On the occasion of International Labour Day, EPFO launched a special mission consolidation drive “One –Employee-One – EPF Account”. The drive is to consolidate multiple accounts of members so that they are able to access variety of IT enabled services such as e-mail / SMS alerts, access to e-passbook at their leisure. Shri Bandaru Dattatreya, Union Minister of State for Labour & Employment (Independent Charge) while presiding over the function marking International Labour Day stated that this drive would result in EPF members having lifelong one EPF account and multiple conveniences. The Universal Account Number (UAN) that is Aadhaar seeded will consolidate multiple past service accounts, across various spells of employment of an EPF member. 

The month of April also saw withdrawal of notification dated 10th February 2016 on amendment in Paragraph 68 NN, 68-O and 69 and insertion of new Para 68 –NNNN in the EPF Scheme, 1952. The interest rate of 8.8% to be credited to members’ accounts for the financial year 2015-16 was also finalized by the Government as recommended by the Central Board of Trustees, EPF. 

Source: PIB

Epfo Launches a Special Drive :Mission Consolidation”One Employee-One Account” on May Day

Epfo Launches a Special Drive :Mission Consolidation”One Empployee-One Account” on May Day

A Software also Launched for Centralized Processing to Transfer and Consolidate Accounts with Ease

EPFO Greets the Human Engines of Nation - Our Labour Force on International Labour Day

Greeting workers on International Workers Day with the.
Sh. Bandaru Dattatreya, the Union Minister for Labour & Employment (Independent Charge) launched a special Mission consolidation drive “One Employee-One EPF Account” for members of the EPFO.

Sh. Bandaru Dattatreya, on the occasion stated that in the recent past, EPFO has taken several IT based initiatives to provide convenient and efficient services to its stakeholders. The initiative of launching the Mission consolidation “One Member One EPF Account” is a step towards encouraging EPF members to access enhanced IT enabled services through UAN accounts that are linked with Aadhaar.

Sh. Dattatreya also informed this drive, would result in EPF members having just one EPF account and multiple conveniences. The Universal Account Number that is Aadhar seeded will consolidate multiple past service accounts, across various spells of employment during working life of an EPF member.

Sh. Shankar Aggarwal, Secretary (Labour & Employment) elaborated that the EPF member would be requested to provide all his earlier EPF accounts along with his UAN linked account, Member ID and registered Mobile Number. And EPFO would facilitate the transfer of all these accounts into his present account. Instructions have been issued to establishments that in case any new employee joins an establishment, they may furnish, UAN, if any, allotted to the member earlier, or declare that s/he is becoming a PF member for the first time.

Dr. V.P. Joy, Central Provident Fund Commissioner added that the success of this drive would reduce not only the burden of members but would also result in ease of work for EPF employees. Similar to other IT initiatives taken by EPFO that have brought transparency and efficiency in the working of EPFO, the success of this drive would further strengthen the bond between EPFO and EPF members. By the end of April 2016, UAN has been issued to some 67716584 members

To educate workers and strengthen the cause of social security, EPFO today launches a special drive to encourage EPF members to consolidate their multiple accounts. The members whose accounts are scattered face many inconveniences such as approaching multiple employers located at multiple locations for settlement of claims. They also face the inconvenience of keeping record of multiple scheme certificates issued in the process. To know about the updated EPF balances, they need to approach multiple offices. With consolidation, a member can have complete control of his EPF account apart from accessing variety of IT enabled services such as email/sms alerts, access to e-pass book etc.

EPFO has been advising members to link all their PF account numbers with the UAN and to also seed KYC data against their UAN number. Aadhaar has been uploaded against 1.30 crore UAN, out of which 1.03 crore Aadhaar have been digitally authenticated by the establishments. The establishments are advised to upload and then digitally authenticate the KYC information. KYC primarily means Aadhaar, PAN and Bank Account. With the enactment of Aadhaar Act, 2016 (26th March 2016), EPFO is now seeking to make Aadhaar, the primary identifier. Members having Aadhaar seeded UAN, saves the inconvenience of claims forms attestation by the employers.

Explaining the benefits of integration of members’ multiple PF accounts Dr. Joy said that consolidated accounts enable continuance of lifelong PF membership, and allow PF, pension and insurance benefits on combined service. Today, large number of members are unaware of Pension benefits that can come through consolidation, defeating the very soul of the EPF legislation. EPFO therefore seeks to encourage members to continue their PF membership by offering increasingly better services and ease of convenience. Larger aim is to help members to upgrade their quantum and variety of benefits being offered by EPFO.

In order to boost the process of seeding the Universal Account Number (UAN) with KYC, an “Incentive Scheme” has been launched for the employers. Under this scheme a claim refund of upto 10% of administrative charges payable to EPFO can be claimed upon completing specified tasks (furnishing member information and digitally authenticated KYC details). The Scheme shall be in operation for one year, beginning 1st January 2016 to 31st December, 2016

This drive will run for one year. During this drive following actions will be taken by EPFO:

· Run a Publicity campaign at regular intervals in Print, electronic and digital media

· A software has been launched today for centralized processing that will transfer and consolidate accounts with ease.

Features of the software are:

· A member has to provide his current activated UAN along with the current member ID & Mobile number registered at UAN Member portal.

· On validating these credentials, EPFO will facilitate the member to register his/her as many as 10 earlier EPF accounts.

· The earlier PF member IDs provided by members will be forwarded to EPFO field office to which earlier member ID pertains. The information provided to field offices will also include current member ID & Mobile number of the member, so that the members can be contacted and facilitated to consolidate his previous EPF Accounts to the Current EPF Account.

· Wide publicity will be given to make use of “Inoperative Help Desk” that helps an EPF member to integrate/ settle such accounts.

· An electronic de-duplication process to be carried out by EPFO.

· “EPFO-E-samkisha” software that is launched to be used for monitoring and implementation of the programmme.

Features of E samiksha software are:

· EPFO e-Samiksha is a real time, online system for follow-up action on the decisions taken.

· The follow up action will be required to be updated by the offices continuously and the status can be viewed centrally.

· Business divisions and the field offices can securely access the system through a log-in/password.

· This system can also be configured to review the follow up actions in respect of other meetings, if require.

Source : PIB

Minimum pension of Rs. 1,000/- per month in perpetuity to Pensioners of Employees’ Pension Scheme, 1995

Minimum pension of Rs. 1,000/- per month in perpetuity to Pensioners of Employees’ Pension Scheme, 1995

The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, today gave its approval for continuation of the minimum pension of Rs. 1,000/- per month to the pensioners of Employees’ Pension Scheme, 1995 (EPS) beyond the financial year 2014-15 on perpetual basis. Currently, it is effective only upto March, 2015. The Cabinet also approved corresponding grant of continuous annual budgetary support for implementing the minimum pension which will be to the tune of Rs. 850 crore per year on a tapering basis.

Providing a minimum pension of Rs. 1000/- per month is an effort to provide meaningful subsistence to pensioners who have served in the organized sector. The present proposal is likely to benefit approximately 20 lakh pensioners under EPS, 1995.

Background:

A large number of member pensioners under the EPS, 1995 receive low pensions which is not commensurate with the growing cost of living. The primary reason behind a meager pension is that it is calculated on the basis of pensionable service and average of last sixty months’ wages. If either of them is low, the pension amount will also be low. This is largely seen in cases of employees of seasonal industries. Further, pensioners who were earlier members of the erstwhile Family Pension Scheme, 1971 have been given past service benefits for determining pension as per Para 12 of the Employees’ Pension Scheme. This has resulted in fixation of low pension for these pensioners.

The Union Cabinet has in its meeting in February, 2014 accorded approval to the proposal for ensuring a minimum pension of Rs. 1,000/- per month for the pensioners of EPS for the financial year 2014-15 by way of providing budgetary support of Rs. 1217.03 crore. Based on the approval of the Union Cabinet, the Employees’ Pension Scheme, 1995 (EPS) was amended on 19.08.2014 to incorporate the provision for providing a minimum pension of Rs. 1,000/- per month for the financial year 2014-15.

After the issue of the Gazette Notification dated 19.08.2014 (with effect from 01-09-2014), the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has commenced disbursing the revised pension from the month of September, 2014. The number of pensioners who have been benefited by the minimum pension provision, which has been compiled from the actual disbursement of pension made by the offices of EPFO after the implementation of the notification, is according to the table below:

Month	Number of Pensioners affected	Amount as per original pension (Rs. Crore)	Amount paid after Minimum Pension Notification (Rs. Crore)	GOI support
September 2014	19,19,756	104.17	165.98	61.81
October 2014	19,32,515	104.14	166.99	62.84
November 2014	19,42,476	104.69	168.18	63.49
December 2014	19,47,750	106.73	170.68	63.95
January 2015	15,13,827	94.72	148.75	54.03
February 2015	16,80,533	103.00	160.15	57.15
March 2015	17,65,307	99.25	158.39	59.13

Source: PIB News

Second Round of Tripartite Consultations on EPF & MP Act Amendments Held

Second Round of Tripartite Consultations on EPF & MP Act Amendments Held

Bandaru Dattatreya Chairs Tripartite Consultations

The Second Round of Tripartite Consultations on Employees Provident Fund and Miscellaneous Provisions Act,1952 (EPF &MP Act) Amendments was held here yesterday. Shri Bandaru Dattatreya, the Minister of State, Labour & Employment (I/C) chaired the second round of tripartite consultations on EPF & MP Act Amendments. The consultations gain greater importance in view of the new amendments proposed in the backdrop of the Union budget proposals impacting the functioning of EPFO.

Inaugurating the consultations, Shri Dattatreya briefly dwelt upon the major changes being mulled in the proposals. They include bringing down the minimum no. of employees required for coverage under the Act from the existing 20 to 10, doing away with the Schedule Head for coverage and bringing in a negative list instead, special provisions for encouraging the functioning of small-scale units, provisions for setting up of multiple Appellate Authorities under the Act, removing ambiguities in the implementation of the Act, ensuring greater clarity in the definitions under the Act, especially with regard to wages which qualify for deduction for the purposes of the Act, introducing greater transparency and accountability in the enforcement of the Act by having an objective inspection scheme, introducing a scheme for unorganized workers and providing a choice to the worker by giving an option to join NPS / EPFO, which is in tune with the proposals mentioned in the Union Budget.

Taking part in the discussions, the representatives of the employers’ associations and federations generally welcomed the various proposals contained in the amendments under consideration. They generally voiced the opinion that the introduction of NPS would mean greater choice for the worker. However, there were also views that NPS cannot match the benefits offered by EPFO and therefore, are not comparable. It was also felt that the amendments would help in sharpening the competitiveness of Indian Industry and would enable India to become a manufacturing hub. However, there was a need to further encourage the concessions granted to the small-scale industries. Increase of coverage also received wide acceptance, both from employers’ and employees’ side.

Opposing certain amendments proposed, representatives of the Trade Unions expressed reservations especially to the move to introduce NPS as a substitute to EPFO. They also expressed reservations regarding the inspection scheme which they argued brought about centralization in the decision making process which is contrary to the prevailing wisdom which favours decentralization.

Summing up the discussions, Shri Shankar Aggarwal, Secretary, MOL&E assured that the concerns of all stakeholders will be addressed when giving final touches to the legislative amendments. Further, the objective behind bringing in the changes is to further strengthen the delivery of social security benefits.

In his concluding remarks, Shri Dattatreya stressed upon the need to focus on the unorganized sector of the workforce which constitutes 93% of the total workforce. He said that the need of the hour is to include more segments of the workforce like Anganwadi works into the ambit of social security legislations. He also informed that the Ministry is contemplating issue of smart cards to the labour workforce so that social security benefits reach each intended beneficiary. He also assured that the Act would be amended taking into account the sensitivities of all concerned.

Shri Sharad Patil, EFI (Employers Federation of India), Shri S.S. Patil, AIMA (All India Manufacturers Association), Shri Bhardwaj, Laghu Udhyog Bharati, Shri Sushant Singh, CII (Confederation of Indian Industries), Shri A.K. Padmanabhan, CITU, Shri A.D. Nagpal, HMS, Shri B.L Sachdeva, AITUC, Shri Ashok Singh, INTUC were some of the notable representatives of employers’ associations and employees’ associations (trade unions) who took part in the deliberations in addition to the representatives of various state governments.

Source: PIB News