In its meeting on July 29 and 30, the retirement fund organization Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) will consider and approve a proposal for establishing a central pension disbursal system, paving the way for the benefit to be credited into the bank accounts of more than 73 lakh pensioners in India at once.
The EPFO currently distributes pensions to pensioners in their regions individually through more than 138 regional offices. As a result, the pensioners of various regional offices receive their pensions at various times.
The EPFO's top decision-making body, the Central Board of Trustees (CBT), would consider a proposal to establish a central pension disbursal mechanism at a meeting scheduled for July 29 and 30, a source told PTI.
The source added that the benefit will be credited to the bank accounts of more than 73 lakh beneficiaries all at once thanks to a single database that will be used to distribute the pension among the nations more than 138 regional offices.
According to the source, this is why retirees across the nation receive their payments at different times because each regional office serves the seniors in its area.
The proposal for C-DAC to establish centralized IT-enabled systems was authorized by the trustees at the CBT's 229th meeting, which was held on November 20, 2021.
After the meeting, the field activities will gradually transition to a central database, enabling more efficient operations and improved service delivery, the Labour Ministry claimed in a statement.
The centralized system will make it easier to consolidate and de-duplicate any member's PF accounts. It stated that it will eliminate the obligation for a transfer of accounts when changing jobs.
According to the source, the CBT will also evaluate and approve a proposal to permit subscribers who have contributed for fewer than six months to withdraw deposits from pension accounts.
Currently, only subscribers who have made contributions for six months to ten years are qualified to withdraw money from their pension accounts.
