PIONEER EDGE NEWS SERVICE/Dehradun
The additional central provident fund commissioner for Delhi, Uttarakhand, Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh Ajay K Mehra has said that all claims in Uttarakhand are being settled within the stipulated time frame by the Employees Provident Fund Organization (EPFO).
Addressing a press conference on Friday, he stated that there are 9,744 contributing establishments and 7,74,377 contributing members in the State.
Mehra praised the Regional Office in Dehradun for providing excellent services to its stakeholders. He highlighted the ‘Samvedana’, which has been established by the Regional office Dehradun as a key initiative to ensure prompt, sensitive and accurate settlement of death claims.
Additionally, Mehra shared information about the Pradhan Mantri Rojgar Yojana (PMVBRY), an ambitious employment-oriented scheme of the Government of India aimed at job creation, enhancing youth employability and expanding social security coverage in the formal sector. With a total outlay of Rs 99,446 crore, it is estimated that the scheme will create over 3.5 crore employment opportunities across the country over two years.
He said that the EPFO has simplified 13 complex provisions into streamlined rules, classified into three categories: Essential Needs (such as illness, education, marriage), Housing Needs, and Special Circumstances. Withdrawal limits have been liberalised, now allowing 10 withdrawals for education and five for marriage, compared to the previous limit of only three for both. Furthermore, the minimum service period for all partial withdrawals has been reduced to 12 months.
He said that the Centralized IT Enabled System (CITES) designed to strengthen EPFO’s digital ecosystem is a significant step towards simplifying and automating processes, expediting claim settlements and withdrawals and enhancing transparency and efficiency in services.
