Subscribers of the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation will soon be able to check the balance of their provident fund accounts on a monthly basis.Once in place, the new system is expected to benefit around 60 million workers covered under EPFO.
"The new system will be operational next month," said RC Mishra, Central Provident Fund Commissioner. At present, subscribers can view their balances only on a yearly basis.
"We are moving towards a system similar to that of banks, where the accounts are updated instantly," added Mishra.
Apart from improving the service for the subscribers, the main trigger for the change was the repeated instances where employers had deducted the PF payments from the salaries of their employees, but had not submitted the deductions to EPFO, Mishra said.
"Now, it will be very difficult for the employers to hide the deductions from the employees' accounts. Employees would know when the deductions have been made," he added.
Employees' representatives, however, said the EPFO move was too little too late.
"EPFO has been working on this project for the last six years. During this time it has seen many delays.
"But we are happy
that it is finally being completed," said DL Sachdeva, national secretary of the All India Trade Union Congress and also a member of the Central Board of Trustees of the EPFO.
The project is the latest in a number of measures implemented by EPFO as part of its digitisation drive.
The new project software has been written by UTI Infrastructure Technology and Services Ltd, while the hardware has been provided by state-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd.
Earlier this month, the organisation had launched an electronic challan-cum return initiative through which employers were allowed to submit their EPF deductions online.
Further, EPFO has also begun work on another online platform that will eliminate the need for any EPFO officer to personally inspect company records.
In the new system, EPFO will ask companies to voluntarily disclose all information required to comply with the EPF Act.
Based on the information, EPFO will devise parameters to discover defaulters.
The parameters will change each year to avoid companies being compliant with only certain parameters.
Further, the organisation is also working on developing a centralised unique account number, which will do away with the present system where EPF numbers are linked to employers.
