IT glitches continue to plague officials of the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), many of whom are tasked with processing and validating applications for higher pension. The issue is likely to be taken up at the meeting of the EPFO’s Central Board of Trustees on October 31.
PF officials point out that the IT systems and software are outdated and the EPFO does not have sufficient servers to ensure smooth functioning.
“The systems are not adequate for the scale of work that the EPFO does. Processing of any pension application can take as much as half an hour, when, ideally, it can be done in much lesser time,” said a senior official with the retirement fund manager.
As reported by Business Today, the Employees’ Provident Fund Officers’ Association (EPFOA) had also written to Union Minister of Labour and Employment Bhupender Yadav in July this year. It had highlighted these challenges and sought an upgrade of the retirement fund manager’s IT system and infrastructure.
Officials lament that while the EPFO has over 7 crore active members and more than 77.2 lakh pensioners, the spending on upgrade of IT systems is negligible compared to even public sector banks. In FY 23, the EPFO’s IT spending was Rs 134 crore as compared to an IT budget of Rs 3,500 crore for State Bank of India.
“If a private player can be roped in to design the IT interface for Passport services, the income tax department and the GST Network, why can’t the same be done in the case of the EPFO?” noted another official.
The report of a committee set up by the CBT to review the IT issues at the EPFO was endorsed but was not taken forward, point out officials, adding that an urgent upgrade is required to ensure that not only the regular work but also the additional job of validating higher pension applications can be done in a hassle free manner. The EPFO has received 1.74 million applications for higher pension that are currently being processed.
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