EPFO asks field staff to reduce proportion of rejected claims

A total of 27 offices have rejected more than 23% claims

Expressing concern over high ratio of rejection of claims for withdrawal or transfer of PF, retirement fund body EPFO has asked its field staff to adopt client-oriented approach to minimise the number of such cases.

"It is found that rejection ratio is on the higher side. A total of 27 offices have rejected more than 23% of their claims... (They should) ensure that rejection ratio is brought to minimum," said a circular issued by Employees' Provident Fund Organisation to its field formations.

It further said that an, "effective and targetted client outreach programme may also be initiated to educate the employees as well as PF members to avoid common errors while filling the claim form which leads to rejections of claims".

Every year, EPFO receives more than one crore claims from its subscribers for withdrawals or transfer of provident fund and settlement of pension.

The body has been trying to improve upon its services on the claim settlement front and is endeavouring to reduce time period for that to less than three days. However, EPFO is supposed to settle all type of such claims with in 30 days period as per its citizen charter.

In a recent performance review, it observed that Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh Zone of EPFO toped the chart with settling 58.51% claims within three days as on September 2, 2013, followed by Haryana and Rajasthan Zone at 43.52% and Uttar Pradesh and Bihar Zone at 38.16%.

The review further stated that efficiency of settling claims per day per social security assistant was highest at Noida office at 27 claims followed by Gurgaon office at 26.

It was also observed that EPFO's Howrah office has also joined league of regional centres where claims settlement in three days is more than 60%.

The Howrah office settled 84.46 claims in less than three days in August compared to 47.47% in April, 46.92% in May and 48.09% in June. It had settled 83.29% of claims with in three days in July this year.

However, it was observed that percentage of claim settled by the all EPFO offices in the country within 30 days, came down to 97.68% in August compared to 98.32% in the previous month.