System reboot: EPF Officers’ Association highlights glitches in IT system, infrastructure

It’s not just subscribers to the Employees’ Provident Fund who have trouble in accessing its website and functionalities, even officers of the retirement fund manager are facing software-related problems and consequent delays. 

The Employees’ Provident Fund Officers’ Association (EPFOA) has now written to the Union Minister of Labour and Employment Bhupender Yadav, who is also the Chairman of the Central Board of Trustees of the EPFO, highlighting these challenges and seeking an upgrade of the retirement fund manager’s IT system and infrastructure. 

The slow speed of the software impacts the timely servicing and processing of claims and requests by members and many PF offices have to remain open on holidays and weekends to manage the workload, the letter has highlighted. 

“Unfortunately, EPFO’s software system and IT infrastructure, which is the life blood of the organisation, and on which the organisation depends for daily claims settlement, members depend for their claim submission and employers depend for regular contribution deposition is in such a poor state that more often than not, it is either down or extremely slow,” said Saurabh Swami, Secretary General of EPFOA, in the letter.  

The EPFO is the world’s largest social security organisation and maintains 277.4 million accounts pertaining to its members. It also caters to 70.2 million contributing members; 0.75 million contributing establishments and 7.65 million pensioners. Its IT expenditure in 2022-23 was however, just Rs 134 crore of which more than half was spent on services, rentals and renewals, and local purchases of PCs and printers by EPFO field offices, and hardly any on long-term system or software improvement. 

Giving a comparison with other large-scale organisations, Swami noted that the income tax department granted its I-T Portal Project to Infosys for Rs 4,242 crore. While State Bank of India SBI has a staff strength of 0.22 million with annual IT budget of Rs 3,500 crore (capital expenditure), EPFO has a staff strength of only 20,000 with annual IT budget of Rs 120 crore.  

“EPFO’s servers shall be reaching their end of service life by beginning of year 2024, however, now with less than six months left for the same, the process for replacement has still not taken off,” he further said, adding that procurement of new servers and replacement of old hardware through officially prescribed tendering process can be expected to take at least six to nine months. “Any further delay may cost EPFO and our members dearly,” he warned. 

Swami has also urged the ministry to take forward the report of the Adhoc Committee on IT and Communication that was set up under the CBT, which includes an IT roadmap specifying the thrust areas for EPFO. “This report was endorsed by the CBT, EPF in its 230th meeting, unfortunately, no progress has been made on implementation of the recommendations,” he noted.  

Many members of the EPFO have also complained that they have trouble in accessing the EPFO website, filing their claims and viewing their e-passbook. Members and pensioners also faced delays and glitches while submitting applications for higher pensions. A number of employers too have pointed out that they face long delays in uploading forms.  

The issue has also been highlighted by members of the CBT, which is the EPFO’s apex decision making body. “This subject needs immediate attention. All the stakeholders such as EPFO officers as well as employees and employers are facing problems due to glitches in the software. The Ministry of Labour has embarked on increasing the members of EPFO to 150 million in the next few years and so it is very important that we have a good and robust software and data safe environment and ease in accessing information by the EPFO, employers and members,” said KE Raghunathan, Member CBT, adding that it is time to invest and refresh the EPFO’s software with data security and ease of access.