The Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has more than seven crore members.
At present, partial or advance withdrawal claims of up to Rs 5 lakh are settled through auto mode, and the deadline for the auto-settlement mode is three days from filing the claim.
Speaking at the ASSOCHAM’s National Seminar on New Labour Codes, Central Provident Fund Commissioner, EPFO, Ramesh Krishnamurthi, said, “We are also going to initiate, as far as feasible, auto-settlement for now…which was (available) only for advances. Now we are going in for auto-settlement of final withdrawals.”
He further added that the EPFO is going in for auto-settlement and auto-transfer of provident fund accounts in case a member shifts employers.
“You don’t have to file a form anymore. We try to auto-migrate your accounts to your latest member account,” he stated.
Talking about fully operationalising four labour codes by publishing rules under those, he stated that there has been a huge attempt to simplify, codify, standardise definitions and other terms.The four new labour codes have already been notified by the government on May 8.
Krishnamurthi said that the next set of notifications that pertain specifically to the EPFO would be published shortly.
Under the new legal framework, the three schemes – EPF Scheme 1952, Employees’ Deposit Linked Insurance Scheme 1976 and Employees Pension Scheme 1995 – will also be renotified.
“We have not gone in for major changes. We have tried to integrate all the learnings from the past. We have included all the recent central board of trustees approved decisions, which include simplification of the withdrawals and other such reforms, including a major overhaul of the provisions relating to the exempt trust. Those have been included in the new schemes,” he added.
On this occasion, Union Labour Secretary Vandana Gurnani said that labour is in the concurrent list of the Constitution, and states will frame their own rules.
The philosophy of the government has been to balance the compliance reduction, ease of doing business, ease of expanding business, and ensuring that the workers are not shortchanged, she said.
The onus is now on the industry to ensure that reform is not just viewed as a compliance checklist, but it is a commitment to dignity, a commitment to a happy, healthy and productive workforce, she added.