Plans to locate beneficiaries of unclaimed Rs 27k cr in EPFO

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Government is planning to locate the beneficiaries through a nationwide campaign to give away an amount of about Rs 27,000 crore lying inoperative with the Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO).
"Government would be undertaking a nationwide campaign to locate the beneficiaries to distribute inoperative amount worth about Rs 27,000 crore lying in the Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO)," Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya said today.
Speaking at an skill development programme organised by Assocham, he said private sector's co-operation is needed for not letting such an amount to further accumulate in the retirement fund body.
Also, the minister said that in the upcoming Budget 2015-16, government will allocate Rs 390 crore to make employment exchanges in the country hubs of career centres.

"Employment exchanges in our country have become only registration centre of unemployed people but our government wants to make it as national career service centres and we would be allocating an amount of Rs 390 crore in the upcoming budget to finance this (programme)," Dattatreya said.
He said that India can provide employment to as many as 10-12 crore people in the near future by imparting good vocational training and skills for the surplus manpower available in the country.

On Apprentices (Amendment) Bill recently passed by Parliament, he said India is providing training to 2.8 lakh people which is very less compared to Germany's 30 lakh, Japan's 1 crore and China's 2 crore.

"In near future we want to equate with Japan in this field so that at least 1 crore people should be given apprenticeship and skill development that needs industry's co-operation," he added.
Increasing globalisation and technological knowhow pose a challenge and upgradation is important, particularly in Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME), he said.
Dattatreya said manpower skills training is crucial for success of the government's ambitious Make-in-India programme.
Stressing on promotion of e-governance, he said the government would promote transparency and accountability to help generate more employability.
"The younger generation is very eager to see results from this government which calls for active participation of the industry," Dattatreya said.'

He said the unorganised sector which employees about 93 per cent of the workforce would be the focus area.
Further, he said government was "working towards elimination of corruption and harassment in the industrial sector" and under the new dispensation being put in place, the inspector would only go for inspection based on computer generated data," he added.