Photogallery
Interaction with Commissioner, PF
Industry Interaction with Central Provident Fund Commissioner & Panel Discussion on Ease of Doing Business: Stakeholder’s Perspective organised on 23 August 2019 at Hotel ITC Windsor, Bengaluru
Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) organised an interactive session with Mr Sunil Barthwal, Central Provident Fund Commissioner, EPFO in the city today. The session focused on the recent amendments, judgements & ease of doing business reforms by EPFO, Ministry of Labour & Employment. The session also deliberated on the compliance mechanism under Employees' Provident Funds & Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952, major initiatives by EPFO and challenges faced by the different stakeholders.
Addressing industry leaders, Mr. Sunil Barthwal said that the purpose of the consultative session was to further improve the communication between EPFO and all stakeholders. He enumerated the 3 principals that guide EPFO i.e. Ease of Doing Business (EODB) to ensure a friendly and honest relationship between Employers and EPFO; Ease of Living for Employees, brought about by digitization & online services and a Good Governance model that is transparent. He urged companies to focus on voluntary compliance rather than EPFO needing to exercise force.
Mr. Barthwal announced that EPFO will be launching an e-inspection system that will simplify the inspection process and ensure that organisations with open communications will not be subject to physical inspection until absolutely necessary.
EPFO proposed to amend the Act to limit enquiry period to a maximum of 2 years in order to curtail harassment. He observed that a small percentage of employees are unable to generate UAN due to mismatch in data. To alleviate this concern, he said that EPFO is looking at alternative authentication viz-a-viz the employee database. He added that the EPFO is working towards a 3-day settlement period for KYC compliant beneficiaries who have UAN linked to Aadhar, have a bank account and a registered mobile number.
Mr. Barthwal also proposed to set up a society of self-regulating consultants, similar to ICAI, in order to curb misuse and corruption. In a significant announcement for industry he proposed to decriminalize defaulters and treat the cases as economic offences.
Mr Barthwal, suggested that a joint committee should be set up between CII, EFI and Industry representatives to collect and address all the issues. CII and EPFO has created a dedicated help desk to facilitate response to queries and issues raised by industry members related to PF.
Terming EPFO as the best and the largest pension fund in the world, Mr. M S Unnikrishnan, Chairman, CII National Committee on Industrial Relations & President EFI said that EPFO has the largest pension subscription in the world and manages fund value in excess of $178 billion. He complimented EPFO in bringing down the settlement window to under 20 days thanks to a vibrant digital and online platform. He urged the industry members to deliberate and interact with the high-level delegation led by Mr. Barthwal and provide ideas and feedback for EPFOs consideration. He offered full support of CII to EPFO and thanked Government of India and EPFO for the vision and excellent support.
Officers from EPFO gave participants a complete overview of the Unified Shram Suvidha Portal and the latest initiatives by EPFO on ease of doing business. The process of claim has evolved from offline filing to digital and app-based platform and the next phase of advancement will be based on bigdata analytical platform that utilizes AI and Machine Learning to trigger all activities.
CII will take this interaction with CPFC to other cities in India to engage and enable a dialogue between industry and EPFO.
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