Online PF withdrawal to be reality by May

At present, the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation receives close to 1 crore applications manually for settlement of EPF withdrawal claim, pension fixation or getting group insurance benefit by deceased persons. “The process of connecting all field offices with a central server is going on. 

We may introduce the facility for online submission of all types of applications and claims like EPF withdrawal and pension settlement by May this year,” EPFO’s Central Provident Fund Commissioner VP Joy told PTI. 

Joy said that all EPFO offices would be connected to central server in couple of months following which the facility of online submission of all sort of applications can be introduced. EPFO has plans to settle the PF withdrawal claim within three hours of filing of online application. 

As per the scheme, EPFO is required to settle all claims within 20 days from filing of the application for settlement of pension or EPF withdrawal. 

Under the pilot, the EPFO has already connected its around 50 field offices with the central server. In a recent review meeting on digitisation in the EPFO, the field formations and Information Services wing has been asked to link all 123 offices with the central server so that subscribers can be provided services online. 

EPFO has made it mandatory for all subscribers as well as pensioners to submit their Aadhaar number. This will help linking EPF account, pension account, bank account and Aadhaar number which would eventually facilitate providing a host of online facilities to subscribers like online withdrawal and fixation of pension.