Retirement fund body, EPFO, will centralise its online payments system from this month and also reduce the claim settlement time to 10 days from 20 days at present, said VP Joy, Central Provident Fund Commissioner.

“We will be centralising online payments this month from Delhi, which right now is being done through the State Bank of India. Six other banks are on the platform and more banks will be enrolled soon,” said Joy, while listing out the achievements of the Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) during an event organised by the Ministry of Labour to mark International Labour Day.

He also said that that the claim settlement deadline will be reduced to 10 days from this month.

Making his presentation, the Chief Labour Commissioner (CLC) said in 2016-17, a total of 1,224 industrial settlements were reached with the Centre’s efforts.

Disputes settled

“Most of these were under the Industrial Disputes Act and pertained to the unorganised sector as well as to contract workers hired by public sector units, such as ONGC, Indian Oil, MTNL etc,” adding that “₹3,000 crore wages were cleared in the process.” On labour law compliance, the CLC said so far, 5,438 annual returns were filed by employers under eight labour laws, of which 3,689 were filed in 2016 alone.

On verification of trade unions, he said the process was going on but the job was “tough” this time as union membership had crossed 10 crore against 2.4 crore in 2008.

Earlier, Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya launched “One IP-Two Dispensaries” under the ESIC scheme and “Aadhaar Based Online Claim Submission” under EPFO’s schemes to mark May Day, and reiterated the government’s commitment to “job security, wage security and social security of the workers.”

TU boycott

The Ministry’s event was boycotted by 10 central trade unions (barring RSS affiliate Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh) who termed it as a “joke” on the part of the government for “moving to dismantle time-tested ESIC/EPFO schemes” and making “unilateral declarations in the name of social security code.’

“We believe that this government, which tries to bring law to increase the working hours from eight hours to 12 hours, organising a meeting ‘to celebrate” the International Labour Day, which is the day of martyrdom of the Haymarket heroes for eight hours work day, is nothing but deceit to the working class of the country,” said a joint release issued by INTUC, CITU, AITUC, HMS, SEWA among others.

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