'Sunidhi' project to digitise provident fund, pension services of CMPFO

The government on Friday announced the launch of an ambitious information technology project 'Sunidhi' to digitise all provident fund and pension related activities of CMPFO

The government on Friday announced the launch of an ambitious information technology project 'Sunidhi' to digitise all provident fund and pension related activities of the Coal Mines Provident Fund Organisation (CMPFO).

CMPFO, a statutory body under the coal ministry, administers different schemes of provident fund, pension and deposit linked insurance for coal mine workers.

"On the august occasion of 151st birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, CMPFO inaugurated the -Superior New-generation Information and Data Handling Initiative (SUNIDHI), in response to Prime Minister's clarion call of Digital India campaign," the coal ministry said in a statement.

The Sunidhi module was inaugurated by settling the provident fund and pension dues of three retired employees of Bharat Coking Coal Ltd (BCCL) in the virtual presence of Coal Secretary Anil Kumar Jain and Coal India (CIL) Chairman Pramod Agrawal, among others.

The information technology project is an effort to digitise all provident fund and pension fund related activities of CMPFO so as to make the system more robust, the ministry said.

This software application is running from its data centre at Hyderabad in sync with the Disaster Recovery Centre at Bhubaneshwar.

"All the 23 offices of CMPFO are connected to the data centre...," it added.

The coal secretary advised opening of information kiosks to provide PF and pension related information in vernacular languages.

He added that the endeavour of CMPFO should be to extend seamless service to coal workers across the country.

Addressing the virtual gathering, Agrawal emphasised on further simplification and integration of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) of CIL and Singareni Collieries Company Ltd (SCCL) with CMPFO for seamless transaction and flow of PF and pension data information.

CMPFO was established in 1948 through an Act of Parliament to administer different schemes of provident fund, pension and deposit linked insurance for coal mine workers.

These schemes are administered through the board of trustees, comprising 23 members representing the Centre, state governments and employees' representatives under the chairmanship of the coal secretary.