EPFO settles 10 lakh PF claims in January this year

Retirement body EPFO today said that it has around 10 lakh claims like PF withdrawal, in January and out these almost 90 per cent applications were settled in less than 20 days.
"The Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) settled 10,15,235 claims during January. About 69 per cent of the total claim got settled within 10 days while another 21 per cent claims got settled between 11-20 days," EPFO's Central Provident Fund Commissioner K K Jalan said in a statement.
According to it, more than 76 offices across the country settled more than 90 per cent claims in less than 10 days time. EPFO has 123 field offices all over the country.

The statement also said EPFO got 15,353 complaints during the month on its Internet portal EPFiGMS. The overall number of pending complaint has further reduced, it said.
Now, 122 out of 123 EPFO offices have no complaints older than 30 days and 114 offices have no complaint pending for more than 15 days.
About the Finance Ministry approval to the Rs 1,000 minimum monthly pension, Jalan has said that this would help 28 lakh pensioners who were getting an average pension of Rs 562 per month. There are about 44 pensioners under the Employees' Pension Scheme 1995 run by the body.

"For the first time, EPFO monitored the release of pension to 44 lakh pensioners. More than 50 per cent of these pensioners got the pension on 1st and 2nd day of January," the statement said.

"The Organisation has identified banks such as PNB and HDFC which have delayed the disbursement to 6th. These banks are being cautioned," it added.
During January, EPFO paid insurance claims to families of 2,298 persons who lost their lives while in job.
EPFO is now laying emphasis on maintaining of accounts and to claim all belated credits and interest from State Bank of India.
As per the statement, more than Rs 40 crore is due on this account.

It said that in the upcoming meeting of its apex decision making body, the Central Board of Trustees (CBT) on Wednesday, the proposals for grant of exemption in respect of firms including Aricent, All India Management Association, National Horticultural Foundation, Genpact, Punj Lloyd, National Institute of Public Finance, would be discussed for making recommendations to the appropriate government.
These exempted firms are those employers who maintain their workers provident fund and accounts. The workers of such private PF trusts also get Income Tax exemption at the time of deposit, accrual of interest on PF and withdrawal of PF.