The Hindu Business Line : EPFO ties with XLRI to implement new biz model

Revamp programme
The business process restructuring exercise is aimed at integrating the organisation's human resources with a new business model
Initiative to transform EPFO into a top-class provider of social security benefits to its four crore members

Kolkata , Aug. 29

The Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has partnered with XLRI Jamshedpur to implement a Business Process Restructuring (BPR) programme that is aimed at integrating the organisation's human resources - numbering around 20,000 - with a new business model that has been contemplated under the BPR exercise.

The comprehensive BPR exercise coupled with computerisation of accounts and assigning of a common Social Security Number is at an advanced stage of implementation, Mr A. Viswanathan, Central Provident Fund Commissioner and a Trustee on the EPF Board, told a news conference held here on Sunday.

Stating that the entire exercise was aimed at "reinventing EPF India," Mr Viswanathan said the initiative would help transform the EPFO from a Government department to a top-class service provider of social security benefits to its four crore members working in the organised sector in India. The EPFO currently manages a fund corpus of over Rs 2,20,000 crore with annual contributions having gone up to a whopping Rs 19,621 crore.

The thrust of the study undertaken by XLRI was to infuse customer and service-orientation among the rank and file of the EPFO.

Recommendations

The 350-page report contains a range of recommendations that include a four-tier organisational structure, scrapping of district offices that exists under the present dispensation, changes in procedures and practices coupled with empowerment of officers to ensure prompt and timely service and strict enforcement of the provisions of the Act. While at present a document passes through 29 hands in course of its processing, implementation of the BPR would reduce its passage through only four hands.

Asked whether it would be prudent to park part of the provident fund corpus with mutual funds for higher returns in a view of the narrowing gap between the interest on EPF and the returns on its investments, Mr Viswanathan said the safety of the fund corpus was of utmost concern.

"However, I must admit that we have scrapped the bottom of the pot and we can no more draw from the consolidated reserves of the fund," he said, in an apparent reference to the 8.5 per cent return on EPF last year, that was possible on account of withdrawals from the consolidated reserves.

Fr Casamir Raj, Director of XLRI, however, said that, in the evolving economic and money market scenario, there was a case for parking a part of the EPF corpus with pension funds and select mutual funds with a view to ensuring higher returns on investments.

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