New Delhi: The Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) achieved a historic high of 2.16 crore auto claim settlements during the current financial year (up to March 6), up from 89.52 lakh in FY2023-24, the Parliament was informed on Monday.
Over 99.31 per cent claims are now received in online mode, without any requirement to visit the field office, said Union Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Shobha Karandlaje, in a written reply in the Lok Sabha. In FY 2024-25 (as on March 6), 7.14 crore claims have been filed in the online mode.
For auto mode processing of advance claims, the amount limit has been enhanced to Rs 1 lakh. Further, in addition to illness/hospitalisation advances, the advances for housing, education and marriage are also enabled for auto mode processing. Now, 60 per cent of advance claims are processed are in auto mode.
The auto-mode claims are processed within three days, according to the EPFO. “Member details correction process has been simplified, and members having Aadhaar-verified UANs can make corrections in their IDs themselves, without any EPFO interventions. At present, about 96 per cent corrections are being done without any EPF office intervention,” according to the minister.
It further stated that in Transfer claim submission requests, the need for employer’s attestation of Aadhaar-verified UANs has been done away with. Now, only 10 per cent transfer claims require member and employer’s attestation. The requirement for submitting a cheque-leaf with the claim form has also been relaxed for KYC-compliant UANs meeting prescribed criteria.
EPFO has also provided de-linking facilities to the members, whose EPF accounts have been erroneously/fraudulently linked by the establishments. “Since its launch on 18.01.2025, more than 55,000 members have de-linked their accounts till the end of February, 2025,” Karandlaje informed.
The claim settlement process is being further simplified with Centralisation of member databases under Centralized IT Enabled System (CITES 2.01). Meanwhile, the EPFO is set to introduce a new system called ‘EPFO 3.0’, which will allow subscribers to withdraw their provident fund (PF) directly from ATMs. The the new system will offer banking-like convenience along with several digital features to make transactions easier.