The Provident Fund for Central Government employees is known as General Provident Fund (GPF). The scheme is not available for those who were appointed after 01.01.2014. They come under the newly formed National Pension Scheme.

Salaried employees are eligible for Employee Provident Fund. Under this scheme, 12% of the employee’s basic salary and D.A is deducted for savings. The employer pays the same amount into the employee’s account.

Currently, the salary limits for P.F. deductions have been raised from Rs. 5,000 to Rs. 15,000. In other words, if an employee earns Rs. 20,000 per month, then, at most, for Rs. 6,500, he would have had a PF deduction of 12%, i.e., Rs.780. Now, it has been raised to Rs. 1,800. The employer too will pay an equal amount. Of the 12% that the employer pays, 8.33% is taken for the PF pension and the remaining 3.36% goes into the PF account. Until now, a maximum Rs. 541 was being deducted for the pension fund. Now, that has been increased to Rs. 1,249.

The EPFO grants pension to retired employees of the private sector. The Centre has raised the minimum monthly pension issued by EPFO to Rs. 1,000. More than 50 lakh employees will benefit from this.

Source : www.employeesnews.net

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Wage ceiling for EPF raised to Rs.15,000

The much-awaited minimum monthly pension of Rs.1,000 and a higher wage ceiling of Rs.15,000 for social security schemes run by retirement fund manager Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) will be implemented from September 1.

The government’s decision to fix pension entitlement of Rs.1,000 under the Employees’ Pension Scheme 1995 (EPFS-95) will immediately benefit 28 lakh pensioners who get less than this amount at present. The move to enhance the minimum wage ceiling for becoming a subscriber of the EPFO to Rs.15,000 a month is expected to bring 50 lakh additional formal sector workers under the ambit of the body.

“The government has notified enhancement of wage ceiling to Rs.15,000 per month, fixed minimum monthly pension at Rs.1,000 under EPS-95 and enhanced the maximum sum assured under the Employees’ Deposit Linked Insurance (EDLI) Scheme to Rs.3 lakh,” EPFO’s Central Provident Fund Commission K. K. Jalan told PTI.

Mr. Jalan said: “Now the maximum sum assured under the EDLI works out to be Rs.3.60 lakh, including 20 per cent ad hoc benefit over the prescribed amount under the notification.” This means that in case an EPFO subscriber dies, his family will be entitled to a maximum sum assured of Rs.3.60 lakh instead of existing Rs.1.56 lakh.

Mr. Jalan said the notification regarding minimum pension, wage ceiling and EDLI would be effected from September 1. Thus all pensioners getting less than Rs 1,000 per month would get at least this much pension from October.

Source: The Hindu

http://www.thehindu.com/business/Industry/minimum-pension-of-rs-1000-under-epfo-wage-ceiling-up-at-rs-15000/article6359907.ece

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EPFO retains interest rate at 8.75% for current fiscal

NEW DELHI: Retirement fund body EPFO’s trustees on Tuesday decided to retain interest payment on provident fund deposits for 2014-15 at 8.75 per cent.

“It has been decided to pay 8.75 per cent interest in the current fiscal,” Central Provident Fund Commissioner (CPFC) K K Jalan told PTI after the meeting of the Central Board of Trustees (CBT), the apex decision making body of the Employees’ Provident Fund Organization (EPFO).

The EPFO has about 5 crore subscribers and the decision will have a bearing on their retirement fund.The decision to retain the interest rate on the provident fund deposits at last year’s level was taken despite some protest by the trade union members of the CBT, sources said.

The final notification for payment of the interest rate for the current fiscal will be issued by the finance ministry later.

The EPFO had provided 8.75 per cent rate of interest on PF deposits for 2013-14, which was higher than 8.5 per cent paid for the previous fiscal.

Source: Times of India

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Retirement fund body Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) will announce the interest rate on provident fund (PF) deposits for the current financial year on January 14 and may offer its over 5 crore subscribers a little more than 8.5 per cent provided in 2012-13.

“The decision on interest rate on PF deposits for this fiscal is pending for long and a decision would be taken by the board in the next meeting,” said Central Provident Fund Commissioner KK Jalan. A decision on the interest rate could not be taken as the Central Board of Trustees has not met after it was reconstituted in May.
Source: http://www.indianexpress.com
[http://www.indianexpress.com/news/epfo-to-decide-pf-interest-rate-on-january-14/1210386/]

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Union Labour & Employment Minister Shri Sis Ram Ola has emphasized that the Employee Provident Fund Organization (EPFO) must give priority to timely settlement of claims for provident fund. In a meeting with the senior officers of EPFO the minister has also emphasized that due to improvement and availability of technology, the citizen rightly expects efficient and transparent mechanism in its settlement of claims. EPFO has a mandate to settle all the claims within 30 days of its receipt.

It was brought to the notice of the Minister that the Employee Provident Fund Organization receives receives on an average 12.74 lakh applications for settlement every month. It is expected during the current financial year, 152.87 lakh claim settlements will be received. Due to consistent monitoring the number of claims pending for settlement beyond 30 days has reduced from 12,702 as on 03-07-2013 to only 5268 as on 26-07-2013. Efforts are being made even to bring down this number.

EPFO has reported that on 03-07-2013, out of 120 offices of EPFO, 60% of claims were settled within 3 days of its receipt in as many as 20 offices. This month 3 new offices have also started processing more than 60% of the claims settled within 3 days. 3 new offices which could achieve this milestone are EPFO offices at Mysore Road, Surat & Bharuch.

Accordingly, Shri Ola noted with satisfaction that the pace of settlement of claims has increased by more than 10% in as many as 27 of the offices.

Minister has also appreciated that in some of the offices, each staff is settling more than 20 claims per day. The offices at Noida & Gurgaon Top the list of the efficiency in terms of No. of disposal per staff. In each of these offices, 27 claims are being settled by each staff every day. Settlement of claim is one of the many responsibilities with the staff of EPFO.

Source : PIB News

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PF Accounts through E-Mails/Sms

Status of sending the monthly details of the Provident Fund accounts to employees is as follows:

(i) The updated Provident Fund (PF) accounts are available online on the EPFO website i.e. wwe.epfindia.gov.in from August 2012 and the Provident Fund accounts of members are updated as and when the contribution is received. Members can view and take printout from anywhere any time.

(ii) Since April 2012, there is a facility for the employers to download the annual accounts slips for their employees from the accounting year 2010-2011 onwards.

(iii) The updated balance in EPF account can be obtained by an EPFO member through SMS by furnishing his PF number and mobile number by using “know your EPF Balance” facility in EPFO website.

(iv) The monthly details of Provident Fund (PF) accounts of EPF members are, presently, not sent through e-mails.

The Minister of State for Labour & Employment Minister Shri Kodikunnil Suresh gave this information in a written reply in Lok Sabha today.

PIB

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Employees’ Provident Fund Organization, EPFO, has decided to pay 8.5 per cent rate of interest on Provident Fund, PF, deposits for 2012-13.

It is higher by 0.25 per cent provided in the previous fiscal. It will benefit over five crore subscribers of retirement fund body.

The decision was taken at the meeting of the Central Board of Trustees, the highest decision making body of EPFO, chaired by Labour Minister Mallikarjun Kharge.

According to the EPFO’s estimates, payment of 8.5 per cent interest rate on PF deposits for current fiscal, would leave a surplus of 4.13 crore rupees with the retirement fund body.

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Employees Provident Fund Organisation
Ministry of Labour & Employment, Govt. Of India

To
All ACCs (Political states),
All RPFC-I (In-charge of Regions),
AH RPFC-II (In-charge of SROs)
(Through web circulation)

Subject: Leveraging Aadhaar for improving the services of EPFO – regarding.

Sir,
This is in reference to Head Office letter No. RI(UID/2010/300351 dated 21.01.2013 on the subject cited above. The issue of expeditious enrolment of the EPF members was discussed with UIDAI Officials. ¡t has emerged that UIDA1 through its registrars has been organising enrollment camps in 18 states only. Register General of India (RGI) has been collecting data in respect of the remaining states through National Population Register (NPR). While the data collected by RGI is also being processed for issue of Aadhaar numbers by UIDAI, the methodology used by RGI for setting up enrolment camps is different i.e. it is being done on the basis of house-to-house data collected by enumerators during Census Operations 2011, unlike UIDAI camps, where any resident, Irrespective  of the place of residence, can get himself enrolled for Aadhaar number. This enrolment may take considerable time.

In view of the discussions held with UIDAI officials and the time required in the process of obtaining Aadhaar numbers, it may not be possible to obtain Aadhaar number / Aadhaar Enrolment number by EPF members by 1st March,2013. Therefore, it has been decided to not to make Aadhaar Number / Enrolment number mandatory for EPF members from 1st March, 2013. However, the field offices would make maximum efforts to obtain the available Aadhaar numbers of the EPF members.

Further your attention is invited to Head Office letter no. MIS-II/ISO-9001/2011-12/24686 dated 9th November 2012 on implementation of ISO 9001 Certification for the field offices which is a mandatory success indicator under the Results Framework Document (RFD). The updation of members’ master in database ¡s one of the standards required for the purpose. In view of the benefits that would accrue both to the EPF members as well as EPFO, It has now been decided to collect the core banking account number of all the contributing members as indicated In ECR.

The Regional offices and Sub-Regional offices should make an all-out effort to collect the core banking account numbers in respect of all the contributing members as indicated in ECR. Compliance of instructions may kindly be ensured in this regard.

Source: www.epfindia.com
[http://www.epfindia.com/Circulars/Y2012-13/RI_UID_37496.pdf]

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