ENA Sectors 2020-06-10 06:51:13 <p><strong>New Delhi, Jun 10 (KNN)</strong> Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has settled 36.02 lakh claims, disbursing Rs. 11,540 crore to its members during the lockdown months of April and May 2020.</p> <p>''Despite the lockdown restrictions, EPFO settled a staggering 36.02 lakh claims thereby disbursing Rs 11,540 crore to its members during April and May,'' an official statement from Labour Ministry said on Tuesday.</p> <p>Out of these, over 15.54 lakh claims were settled under the recently COVID-19 advance under Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana (PMGKY) for which Rs 4580 crore were disbursed.</p> <p>The COVID-19 advance under PMGKY was mainly availed by EPFO members hit by the nationwide lockdown especially those with wages less than Rs 15,000 per month.</p> <p>Under the scheme, eligible EPFO members were allowed to receive COVID-19 advance to the extent of basic wages and Dearness Allowance (DA) for three months or up to 75% of the amount standing to member's credit in the EPF account, whichever is less.</p> <p>''It has provided timely relief to many workers, preventing them from falling into indebtedness,'' said EPFO.</p> <p>''A look at wage slab-wise data points out that more than 74 % of total claimants during the lockdown period belonged to a slab of less than Rs.15,000 wage. The high-income category with wages more than Rs. 50,000 accounted for a mere 2% of the claimants. Approximately 24% of claims were made by the members with wages falling in the Rs.15,000 to less than Rs.50,000 category,'' the statement added.</p> <p>Despite the shortage of manpower, EPFO significantly brought down the claim settlement period from around 10 days to roughly 3 days for COVID-19 advances.</p> <p>EPFO also launched its first fully automatic claim settlement system in a record time of just five days and almost 54% of the COVID 19 claims are now being settled through the auto mode.</p> <p>This system is expected to drastically cut down claim settlement time for EPFO in future.</p> <p>With automation and a dedicated workforce, EPFO is settling more than 80,000 claims every working day amounting to about Rs. 270 crore, ensuring social security support for its members in times of crisis.</p> <p><iframe frameborder="0" height="500" id="mgiframe" src="//mg.mgid.com/mghtml/framehtml/c/k/n/knnindia.co.in.338951.html" width="100%"></iframe></p> 25222 https://knnindia.co.in/news/newsdetails/sectors/epfo-settles-3602-lakh-claims-worth-rs-11540-cr-in-april-may 2020-06-10 06:51:13 knnindia.co.in