Out of this, 15.54 lakh claims, which saw disbursement of Rs 4,580 crore to claimants, were related to the recently introduced COVID-19 advance under Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana (PMGKY).
Retirement fund body the Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), on Tuesday, said it has settled 36.02 lakh claims amounting to Rs 11,540 crore to its members during the last two months of April and May 2020.
Out of this, 15.54 lakh claims disbursing Rs 4580 crore were related to the recently introduced COVID-19 advance under Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana (PMGKY).
“The COVID-19 advance has been a great help to EPFO’s members during these difficult times, especially for the members with monthly wages of less than Rs 15,000,” it said in a statement.
“Receiving the COVID-19 advance to the extent of basic wages and DA for three months or up to 75% of the amount standing to member’s credit in the EPF account, whichever is less, has provided timely relief to many workers, preventing them from falling into indebtedness,” it added.
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An EPFO analysis on the wage slab-wise data shows that more than 74 % of total claimants during the lockdown period belonged to slab of less than R 15,000 monthly wage.
The high income category with wages more than Rs 50,000 accounted for a mere 2% of the claimants while approximately 24% of claims were made by the members with wages falling in the Rs15,000 to less than Rs 50,000 category.
Notwithstanding the shortage of manpower, EPFO significantly brought down the claim settlement period from around 10 days to roughly three days for COVID-19 advances on the back increase in productivity and use of artificial intelligence.
During this period, EPFO launched its first fully automatic claim settlement system in a record time of just five days. “Almost 54% of the COVID 19 claims are now being settled through the auto mode,” it said, adding this system is expected to drastically cut down claim settlement time for EPFO in future.
Accoridng to EPFO, with automation and dedicated workforce, EPFO is settling more than 80,000 claims every working day amounting to about Rs 270 crore, thus ensuring social security support for its members in times of crisis.
