The Regional Provident Fund Office here is taking various steps to bring down the pendency rate of claims and ensure faster payment to subscribers.
Shankar Pathak, Regional Provident Fund Commissioner, on Friday said his office is trying to put in place National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT) facility as payment through cheque, as is the practice now, is a cumbersome procedure and often leads to delays.
Another facility being made available is providing status of claims to applicants through SMS service and putting the same information on the PF office’s website, he said.
Pathak said his office is working vigorously towards reaching the goal of ‘zero’ pendency of claims. Of the total 1,08,153 claims handled up to October this year, almost 95 per cent were settled in less than 30 days, he maintained.
Last year, while the settlement ratio to the total claims was 72.46 per cent, the pendency ratio was just 0.43 per cent and this was due to certain technical reasons, Pathak said.
“Now our endeavour is to reach ‘zero’ pendency this year,” the Commissioner stated.
The Thane PF office has 13,302 establishments under its jurisdiction and has 24.19 lakh member-subscribers.
Meanwhile, a total of 31 business establishments figure in the list of defaulters of PF contribution to the tune of around Rs 31 crore in the Thane region.
This has been revealed in a report of the Regional PF Office. The outstanding amount includes Rs 3.42 crore which forms the share of employee contribution towards the PF and family pension fund.
The defaulted amount for 2009-10 was Rs 2151 lakh and there were only eight erring establishments which shot up to 25 in the subsequent year with an outstanding amount of Rs 2382.87 lakh, and then to Rs 3101.95 lakh and 31 such establishments in 2011-12, it said.