In order to enable all eligible persons to file their applications, EPFO on Tuesday extended the date for filing applications to opt for a higher pension till June 26, 2023. Members of the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) can apply jointly with their employers till the extended deadline, by choosing the option of higher pension (EPFO Higher Pension) on the Unified Members’ portal of the EPFO site.
BSNL CO issued final list of all eligible associations for 3rd Membership verification to be conducted through secret ballot for electing majority representative association of executive in BSNL.
We the CHQ team of AIGETOA has met with PGM (CA) and discussed the problems facing by the executives of BSNL while filing the wage data by the authorised signatories under EPFO and also submitted the AIGETOA representation in this regard.
We also requested him to write a letter to EPFO for the extension of the date of filing of the higher pension option on the EPFO portal so that all interested employees can opt in website.
PGM CA assured us that we will take up the issues as discussed and try to resolve the issues in timebound manner.
AIGETOA writes to CMD BSNL for intervention & interaction with respective EPFOs regarding Certification of Past data by various DDOs and final submission.
The approval / certification process from employer side is being routed to the respective establishment code login which were being used at the time of contribution. In this regard, we have highlighted the following:
- BSNL payroll system was not a centralised package before ERP and HRMS. Different packages were used in various circles for Pay roll.
- Thousands of employees were transferred across BAs/Circles and worked in various sections which are presently non-existent. Like Merged BAs/ QA, T&D, inspection, Civil, electrical, centralised mobile sections, etc.
- Even the EPFO also was not maintaining centralised EPF accounts before the introduction of UAN. Thus, thousands of BSNL employee’s data approval with the employer got struck despite submission of the online options by the employees on EPF portal.
- As per ground reports, negligible Application have been approved owing to the non-availability of data and confusion over the responsibility of DDOs in the absence of service books at the officers where the verification of the past accounts have been routed. Many applications have been rejected from the login itself.
- Wage data is being asked from the employees and the staff working in field have little or no knowledge of the process and neither they are getting any support on this process.
- The internal directions and circular issued by EPFO are making confusion among the concerned accounts wing team too. When the service Book of each employee are with the latest establishment code in BSNL (respective Circles) where the employees is presently posted. The certification for each employee is also being done by the present Circle level DDO. EPFO needs to be informed about this as previous accounts are being sent to the earlier DDOs.
- An Employee cannot be held responsible for non-keeping of centralised payroll by Employer and Centralised PF account system by EPFO in the past. Neither did the employee has been informed about the EPF contributions in the past which was a mandatory exercise by employer.
- A major issue at Employer part (in the login of AO-Cash) is validation of data while uploading Wage data of employee in TXT file. Several checks are being done at this level, which are not disclosed to employer resulting error(s) in uploading the file.
- The requirement of applying exclusively online, is discriminatory and prevents large sections of employees who are not familiar with the procedures from exercising their option. This was pointed out by CBT Members several times. Besides, the online system of the EPFO suffers from major connectivity, issues and the sites are not responsive maximum of the times.