EPFO Emerging as Centre for Excellence in Governance - Shri Shankar Aggarwal
The Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) is on way of becoming a centre for excellence in governance. This was stated by Shri Shankar Aggarwal, Secretary, Labour & Employment here today while inaugurating EPFO’s new revamped website as a part of ‘Digital India Week’. Shri Aggarwal reiterated various initiatives taken by EPFO in the recent past to bring about a transformative effect on the benefit delivery mechanisms by adopting IT enabled tools and techniques. He further said that EPFO will become truly paperless and extremely subscriber/citizen friendly in the days to come.
On the occasion, a booklet detailing the various digital initiatives taken by EPFO in the recent past was also released. In the recent past, EPFO had taken giant strides in improving its benefit delivery methods and mechanisms. Leveraging Information technology, a host of measures were introduced for greater customer satisfaction:
Universal Account Number (UAN) – The launch of UAN has enabled PF members to access a bouquet of services like dynamically updated UAN card, updated PF passbook including all transfer-in details, facility to link previous members’ ID with present ID, monthly SMS regarding credit of contribution in PF account and facility for auto-triggering transfer request on change of employment. Already, more than 4.64 crore UAN have been allotted and 58 lakh EPF members have activated their UAN. During the UAN campaign, approximately2.42 crore bank account details, 99 lakh PAN details and 58 lakh Aadhar / NPR numbers of PF members were captured by EPFO.
With the launch of Inoperative Account Helpdesk on the EPFO website, tracing out old or dormant Inoperative Account of PF members has become easy. Already, more than 42,500 cases registered with the helpdesk have been disposed.
With the introduction of centralized software for generation of certification of coverage(CoC) for international workers, it has been possible to issue more than 63,000 certificates of coverage to members migrating for employment to countries having social security agreement with India.
Online Transfer Claim Portal(OTCP) has made transfer of PF accumulations from one account to another quick and online. Members can file their requests online and there is zero paper movement between the concerned offices of the organisation. More than 5.71 lakh claims have been handled through this facility.
Electronic return for exempted establishment has made the process of submitting the monthly return by exempted establishments easier and hassle free. 1,600 exempted establishments have made use of this facility.
Centralized Monitoring of Compliance related functions has enabled online monitoring by field offices and Head Office. It provides data on defaults by establishments covered under the Act and enables the Organisation to track the status of assessments including levy of damages and also status of recovery and legal cases.
Online Registration of Establishments (OLRE) has made registration of establishment with EPFO web based. PF code allotment letter is also made available online and more than 53,000 employers have benefited since the introduction of this facility in June, 2014.
Mobile platform based Short Code SMS Service was also launched which could be accessed by PF members who have activated their UAN. Using this service, member can send SMS to a specific number i.e 7738299899. The format of the SMS is EPFOHO UAN followed by first three characters of the preferred language.
SMS alerts are sent to members for remittance, withdrawals, interest credit etc.Also, SMS is sent to employers for non deposit of dues.
Central MIS portal has introduced a system of Dashboards which ensures uniformity and consistency in data and results in greater efficiency in monitoring.
Auto-updation of members’ accounts has enabled the organization to update more than 14.5 crore accounts for the year 2014-15 in the beginning of the financial year itself.
In addition to the above, EPFO has lined up a slew of digital initiatives for the future like introduction of centralized pension system, integration with external entities such as UIDAI, steps to ensure direct extension of services to members, initiation of Big Data analytics and progressive introduction of service delivery measures through hand held devices.
Earlier Shri K K Jalan,CPFC welcomed the guests. Shri Harish Gupta, EPF Appellatet Tribunal Senior officers from the Ministry and EPFO were present.
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