EPFO News: The Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has initiated some game-changing reforms to benefit over 7 crore members. The retirement fund body has simplified the joint declaration process, implemented a Centralised Pension Payment System (CPPS), taken action on policies related to higher pensions for members, enabled online member profile updates, and made easy PF transfers.
Below are the details of each of these changes to help members manage their provident fund more effectively.
Centralized Pension Payment System
Centralized Pension Payments System (CPPS) has been fully rolled out in all regional offices of EPFO across India.
CPPS enables pension payments through the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), allowing pensions to be processed for any bank account in any branch of any scheduled commercial bank across India. Regional Offices (ROs) are now equipped as CPPS-enabled offices.
Read also – Corrections in EPFO portal, account transfers simplified
A full-scale rollout of the CPPS under the Employees’ Pension Scheme 1995 happened in December 2024. The government disbursed about Rs 1,570-crore pension to more than 68 lakh pensioners, spanning all 122 pension-disbursing regional offices of EPFO for December 2024.
The first pilot of the project was completed in October 2024, and the second pilot was taken up in November 2024.
The new facility has eliminated the need for physical verification visits and simplified the pension disbursement process.
Clarification on higher pension
The Executive Committee (EC) of the Central Board of Trustees (CBT) of the EPFO last week took up the matter of the pending applications of subscribers who opted for higher pensions, post a Supreme Court ruling in 2022.
The CBT is the highest decision-making body of the EPFO. The body is the final authority on decisions about interest rates, investments, and the development of new systems, among others.
According to an official release, the CBT’s executive panel was apprised about the expeditious examination of pending applications—related to higher pensions—of over 100,000 cases in the past month, the issuance of 21,000 demand letters by regular monitoring of the field offices, and the issuance of clarifications. The EC recommended holding regular “video conferences” with employers to accelerate the correction in such cases.
EPFO members’ profile updation
The EPFO will now allow the members whose Universal Account Number (UAN) has already been validated through Aadhaar to update their profile name,
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