New Delhi, Feb 23 (PTI) A total of Rs 30.52 crore stuck in over seven lakh inoperative accounts of the retirement fund body EPFO will soon be returned to the account holders or their legal heirs, a labour ministry source said on Monday.
The Ministry of Labour & Employment, in a review meeting, decided to settle 7.11 lakh inoperative accounts of the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), each having a balance of up to Rs 1,000, the source said.
The provident fund account, which has not received any contribution either from the employee or from the employer in more than 36 months, is referred at inoperative.
The source further said that a total of Rs 10,903 crore is accumulated in overall 31.86 inoperative EPF accounts.
Out of them, seven lakh accounts with a balance of Rs 1,000 or less have post-retirement funds of Rs 30.52 crore.
These amounts will be instantly transferred to the bank accounts of those having EPF accounts seeded with Aadhaar. In case of the death of the account holder, the money will be paid to the nominee or the legal heir, the source said.
The ministry is in the process of cleaning up all EPF accounts and will eventually settle all inoperative accounts in due course of time and pay back to the appropriate beneficiaries, said the source.
Besides, the ministry is also working on the project EPFO 3.0, a digital transformation initiative, which is aimed at enhancing services to members and establishments by introducing Core Banking System-enabled facilities.
This initiative is designed to streamline processes and reduce paperwork, making it easier for members to manage their social security accounts, faster claim processing and managing all member services from a unified platform.
Claims having clearance from risk management are designed to be processed in auto mode without manual intervention, reducing the time taken for manual settlement from up to 20 days to less than 3 days.
In order to monitor the effectiveness of these new features in reducing member grievances and processing time, the EPFO conducts regular meetings to review the qualitative and quantitative aspects of grievance handling and their resolution.