NEW DELHI: Processing of claims by the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has seen a sharp jump of about 30% year-on-year in August-September, thanks to the latest software upgrade by the world’s largest retirement fund body’s digital platform.
The slower pace of claims settlement by EPFO had earlier been a burning issue, and caused much heartburn among the subscribers, including those who sought to prematurely withdraw part of the accumulated funds to meet financial emergencies.
A senior official told FE that the upgradation of the software was completed six weeks ago. “During peak hours, we’re seeing processing of claims have now doubled (as against a few months ago),” the official said. “The EPFO is expected to upgrade its hardware too, and further upgrade its software for this purpose very soon,” the person added.
The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), has built the new software for the EPFO, which is helping the retirement body in reducing rejection of claims.
As per official data, the rejection rates of EPF final settlement had surged from around 13% in 2017-18 to nearly 34% in 2022-23. It is now much lower.
Out of the three PF claim categories – final settlement, transfer, and withdrawal – the rejection rate saw a sharp rise for the final settlement of PF claims over the last five years.
Overall, in 2022-23, total claims for final PF settlement, transfer claims, and withdrawal claims totalled 52.1 million. Of this, 13.4 million or 25.8% claims were rejected, while 37.7 million or 72.4% claims were settled, showed official data.
Sources say the main reason for the rise in the rejection rates was discrepancies in data which the EPFO systems had and what the claimants shared, and technical issues with the IT infrastructure. But post the software upgrade, improvement has been seen on both fronts, said another official.
An official had earlier told FE that the “rejection (of claims) occurs when members’ details are not matched with the system, and they don’t act in the prescribed manner.”
Meanwhile, the official said that the government is working on building a “centralised database for a centralised payment system” under the EPFO, which is expected to be operational in the next two months. The database will keep records of a subscriber at one place, even if they shift locations.
In the first 100-days of the Narendra Modi led NDA government, the EPFO relaxed the mandatory requirement of uploading the image of cheque leaf/attested bank passbook for certain eligible cases for EPF claims.
As per an official release, this will ensure faster settlement of claims filed online thus promoting ease of living, and reduce instances of rejection of claims due to non-uploading of the image of cheque leaf/attested bank passbook. Earlier, over 10% of partial withdrawal cases were rejected on account of non-uploading of these documents.
Source: The Financial Express
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