Unions walk out of EPF Trustees Meeting – “There is nothing such as unclaimed EPF money and the notification is illegal,” said AITUC secretary DL Sachdev.

Central trade union leaders on Tuesday walked out from the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO)’s central board of trustees meeting protesting a Finance Ministry notification allowing unclaimed PF money to be diverted towards a Senior Citizens’ Welfare Fund.

The union leaders staged a walkout within an hour of the meeting.

“This is injustice to the workers. It’s our money. How can the government divert it to fund a so-called Fund?” said INTUC leader Ramen Pandey. All the union leaders gathered here and started demonstration in the parking area of the EPFO headquarters where the labour minister’s car was parked.

“There is nothing such as unclaimed EPF money and the notification is illegal,” said AITUC secretary DL Sachdev.

According to a Finance Ministry notification on March 18, deposits, unclaimed for over seven years, of EPF, PPF and small saving schemes such as Post Office Savings Accounts, Post Office Recurring Deposit Accounts and National Savings Certificates subscribers will be diverted towards setting up a Senior Citizens’ Welfare Fund.

According to the rules, the concerned government office “shall try to contact” every account holder of the unclaimed deposits through written notice, e-mail or telephone at least two times in 60 days before transferring the amount to the Senior Citizens’ Welfare Fund. The Senior Citizens’ Welfare Fund was announced in the last Budget.

Source: The Hindu

The post Unions walk out of EPF Trustees Meeting appeared first on CENTRAL GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES NEWS.

The Govt puts on hold new Provident Fund withdrawal norms till July 31. New PF withdrawal norms proposes to bar withdrawal of employer’s contribution to the provident fund corpus until the employee attains the age of 58 years.

On the issue of new Provident Fund withdrawal norms, the government today decided to keep the implementation of new norms in abeyance for three more months till July 31st.

The announcement comes in the midst of protest by labour unions in several parts of the country against the new norms.

People have also launched online campaign against the decision, which was to be implemented from February 10 but was later put on hold till April 30.

In February, the ministry had issued a notification restricting 100 per cent withdrawal of provident fund by members after unemployment of more than two months.

Source: DDI News

Government had issued a notification dated 10th February 2016 regarding rules for withdrawal from EPF Funds by the members. Under the revised rules, the employee was permitted to withdraw the employees’ share from the fund (which is 12% of the wages).

However, it was prescribed that the employers’ share of contribution towards the Provident Fund (which is 3.67% of wage) would be allowed to be withdrawn only at the age of retirement (58 years).

The objective was to provide a minimum social security to the workers at the time of retirement. It was noticed that over 80% of the claims settled by EPFO belonged to pre-mature withdrawal of funds, treating the EPF accounts as savings accounts, and not a Social Security instrument.

In order to address the issues the amendment stated above was carried out with the consent of Trade Unions and with the intention of promoting a decent accumulation of provident fund for the members at the end of their working lifetimes.

However, considering the representations received from various quarters and after consultations with the various stakeholders, Minister of State (IC) Labour and Employment, Sh Bandaru Dattatreya announced that the government has decided to withdraw the said 10th February 2016 Notification with immediate effect.

Accordingly, the workers are now allowed to withdraw the entire amount from the provident fund as per existing provisions of the EPF Scheme 1952 including the employers’ share of 3.67%.

Source: Press Information Bureau

The post New EPF withdrawal norms put on hold for 3 months appeared first on CENTRAL GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES NEWS.

In addition to the above, the Organisation responded to 16,586 grievances in the month of September. As a result, the number of total grievances has come to around 6,000. The earlier number was more than 25,000. It is also relevant that 101 of the 123 offices have no grievance pending for more than a month.

Rs. 6,018 crores was received during the month under remittances compared to Rs. 5,961 crores in the previous month of August. A total of 4.55 crore accounts were updated till the month of September. In order to bring about an improvement in the services, a plan for comprehensive review of the functioning of the field offices by the Central Provident Fund Commissioner has been set into motion. In this connection, new targets have been fixed by the Central P.F Commissioner. They include, a long term target of settling all claims in 3 days, per capita productivity of 15 claims per day, resolution of grievances registered in the grievance portal, EPFiGMS within 10 days, liquidation of 80% annual accounts by October,2013 and 100% by December,2013.

In order to provide safe, secure and speedy disbursement of pension, Core Banking Solution (CBS) has been made use of. Almost, 84% of the 45 lakhs pensioners are being disbursed pension monthly using CBS.

During the meeting Central P.F Commissioner reviewed the working of Compliance division and stressed the need for ensuring compliance in respect of contract employees. Noting with concern the fact that recovery of outstanding dues has to be accorded top priority, instructions have been issued to the Regional P.F Commissioners in the field offices to draw up an action plan for liquidating the same. As substantial amounts are locked up due to winding up of establishments and resultant court cases, directions have been issued to follow up with Official Liquidators. Also, instructions have been issued to verify the compliance position of manpower engaged through contractors in various ministries and departments. In an important move, it has also been decided to verify the coverage of autonomous bodies functioning under the Central and State Governments with a view to ensure that the benefits of the Act and schemes are extended to all the eligible beneficiaries.

As a part of the ongoing overhauling of the grievance redressal machinery, EPFO offices have begun directly talking to the aggrieved subscribers over telephone. From the Head Office alone, close to 1000 subscribers were contacted telephonically for redressing their grievances especially with respect to grievances which were registered directly at Central P.F Commissioner’s desk. This has improved the work culture of the Organisation.

Giving importance to the issue of keeping the office premises clean and streamlining the office functioning, 100000 kilos of old records have been weeded out.

The training academy of the Organisation, namely, NATRSS which is National Academy for Training and Research in Social Security is thinking of collaborating with International Labour Organisation. Moves are afoot to get NATRSS recognised as a ‘Centre for Excellence’ by the ILO and thereby enabling training programs of ILO to be held in NATRSS.

Source: PIB

The post EPFO Performance in September 2013 appeared first on CENTRAL GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES NEWS.