If you are an EPF account holder, then it is important to know or understand the changes made recently by EPFO in the PF account rules. These changes include auto-settlement, multi-location claim settlement and speeding up death claims. According to the news of Economic Times, these changes made by EPFO will facilitate a large number of PF account holders. Let us understand these changes here.
Auto-settlement facility
The Employees Provident Fund Organization has introduced the facility of auto-settlement for housing under Rule 68B and education and marriage under Rule 68K. According to this, now any claim up to Rs 1,00,000 will be processed automatically without any human intervention. That is, now you do not need to do much thinking for this.
Multi-location claim settlement
To expedite the EPF claim settlement process within the stipulated time frame, EPFO has introduced a link office setup for multi-location settlement. This will help reduce the time taken by easing the burden associated with expediting settlement of claims across the country. Also, this facility will speed up the claim process and replace the existing geographical jurisdiction structure and productivity.
EPF Death Claim without Aadhaar Seeding
To ease the process of death claims in the absence of Aadhaar information, EPFO has allowed physical claims without seeding Aadhaar. Though this has been brought in as a temporary measure, it requires proper approval from OIC, which will enter the verification details to confirm the membership of the deceased and the relationship with the claimants. However, these instructions will apply only in cases where the details of the deceased member are correct in the UAN but incorrect in the Aadhaar database.
Exemption from mandatory uploading of cheque leaf
Recently, EPFO has relaxed the mandatory requirement of uploading check leaf image or verified bank passbook for some cases. This move will speed up the settlement of online claims. It will also reduce the number of claims rejected due to non-submission of photos on time. The EPFO notice states that the relaxation will be provided only for certain eligible cases, based on verification such as online verification of bank KYC by the concerned bank/NPCI, verification of bank KYC by the employer using DSC, Aadhaar number verified by UIDAI and others.
Latest Business News