Over 50 million subscribers of the retirement fund body
EPFO can obtain e-passbook along with details of their updated accounts online
from Wednesday.
"The EPFO subscribers can get their statement of accounts online from today,"
Central Provident Fund Commissioner R C Mishra said while addressing a seminar
on Employees' Provident Fund Act by the PHDCCI.
In order to avail this facility, the active subscribers would have to
register themselves on the EPFO portal by furnishing their account details.
The facility to obtain e-passbook will be available only for active members
of the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) and would not be extended
to those whose accounts are inoperative, settled or have negative balance.
The members of exempted provident fund trusts regulated by the EPFO, too will
too not be entitled for this facility through its portal.
The e-passbook will also have additional information like name, date of birth
and account number.
Mishra also informed that the EPFO is in the process of introducing the
facility of online settlement of provident fund claims in a couple of
months.
At present, the subscribers who are either superannuated or applied for
withdrawals, can apply only manually and is time consuming.
As per the EPFO citizen charter, such claims should be settled within a
month, though it takes longer than that.
Mishra said in order to provide the facility of online application of claims,
EPFO would require a central database. At present, all regional EPFO offices
maintain their database separately.
"These works including fund transfers, settlement of PF accounts and
withdrawals constitute over 80 per cent of our work," he said, adding online
claim settlement will save time and improve efficiency.