New Delhi, February 23 A total of ₹30.52 crore stuck in over seven lakh inactive accounts of the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) will soon be returned to the account holders or their legal heirs, a source in the Ministry of Labour and Employment said on Monday.
In a review meeting, the Ministry of Labour & Employment decided to settle 7.11 lakh inactive accounts of the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), each having a balance of up to ₹1,000, the source said.
A provident fund account is considered inactive if it has not received any contribution from either the employee or the employer in more than 36 months.
The source further stated that a total of ₹10,903 crore is accumulated in the overall 31.86 inactive EPF accounts.
Of these, seven lakh accounts with a balance of ₹1,000 or less have post-retirement funds of ₹30.52 crore.
These amounts will be instantly transferred to the bank accounts of those having EPF accounts seeded with Aadhaar. In the event of the account holder's death, the money will be paid to the nominee or the legal heir, the source said.
The Ministry is in the process of clearing all EPF accounts and will eventually settle all inactive accounts in due course and pay back to the appropriate beneficiaries, the source said.
Besides, the Ministry is also working on the project EPFO 3.0, a digital transformation initiative, which aims to enhance 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 that have received 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.