Advisor Kumar for early settlement of Provident Fund claims

Chairs 80th meeting of Board of Trustees of JKEPFO

‘Online claim filing to be launched soon’

SRINAGAR, JULY 17: Advisor to Governor, K Vijay Kumar has asked the Jammu and Kashmir Employees Provident Fund Organization (EPFO) to expedite the process of settlement of pending dues to its subscribers and also to ensure that the employee who files the Provident Fund claim get its money within stipulated time frame. He also directed for pacing up the process of digitization of records which would further help in achieving the positive results.

While chairing the 80^th meeting of Board of Trustees of J&K Employees Provident Fund Organization, the Advisor said that it is important that the money of the employees deposited with the organization should be given back to them whenever the subscriber files claim with the JKEPFO within given period of time.

The meeting was attended by Principal Secretary, Labour & Employment and Industries & Commerce department, Shailendra Kumar, Provident Fund Commissioner J&K Bashir Ahmed Khan, various members of Board of Trustees and officers from JKEPFO.

During the meeting, it was decided that soon the organization will launch the service of filing claims online that would make the entire process easy and also help in tracking the application with their present status. It was stressed that the digitization of records needs to be completed by the end of December, 2018.

Addressing the meeting, K Vijay Kumar also directed for putting in an effective grievance redressal mechanism and to address the issues of the employees who are the subscribers of EPFO.

JKEPFO would also develop online payment software to receive and pay the payments online to the subscribers. In order to make the organization subscriber friendly and self-sufficient, the Advisor suggested for sending a team of the Board of Trustees to study the best model of the EPFO in the country and to adopt the practices being used by that organization.

The Advisor also asked for conducting the internal audit of the employees to get their performance report besides incentivizing the staff working in the EPFO offices in various districts of the state.

The meeting discussed in detail all the agenda items presented before the board for discussion and approval including audit of accounts, investment of provident fund money, declaration of rate of interest for current financial year, enhancement of insurance amount and settlement of withdrawal/Provident Fund claims within time frame and others.

Regarding investment of Provident Fund money, it was decided that a best fund manager would be hired and the suggestions and plan of the fund manager would be taken up before the Board for approval.

“Proper fund management is the need of the hour and the majority of the corpus lying with the organization should be invested properly so that the returns would be utilized on welfare of the employees”, the Advisor said.

Principal Secretary Labour & Employment informed the meeting that the organization has hired a firm for preparation of the annual accounts for the years 2006-07 to 2014-15. Once the job is done by the firm, JKEPFO will contact CAG for appointing a team for the audit of accounts of the organization, he added.

While discussing the issue of declaration of rate of interest, it was proposed that the EPFO should follow the rate of interest which Central Provident Fund Organization (CPFO) is carrying. With regard to enhancement of insurance amount, it was informed that the organization has increased the amount upto Rs 2 lakh.

The meeting also deliberated upon the follow up action of the decisions taken in the previous meeting of the Board of Trustees.

While enquiring about the status of legal cases pending in various courts, the Provident Fund Commissioner informed the meeting about the details of the cases and put forth the demand of hiring standing counsels for both the divisions. The Advisor asked the Principal Secretary to look into and also to take up with the Law department and come to the Board in its next meeting.

He also asked for hiring services of some reputed IT agency or taking help from the IT department for end to end process capturing on computers.

The members also raised various other issues beneficial for the subscribers. The members were assured that all genuine points raised by them would be taken care of.