To boost the interest of its subscribers, the Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has recently made several changes to its rules, including the option to apply for higher pensions, strengthening the grievance redressal mechanism and guidelines on the employees’ pension scheme (EPS).

In its latest directive, EPFO asked its field offices to hasten the grievance redressal process to less than seven days. It warned its officers that the delay had attracted critical comments from the Labour and Employment Ministry.

It stressed that the zonal and regional offices must expedite their first action on each case to two to three days since any delay in that initial stage would definitely delay the overall grievance redressal period. Last year, EPFO directed its field offices to resolve public grievances within 15 days of registering them.

“It has been observed that there has been increased pendency of grievances beyond 15 days and 30 days, inviting critical comments from the ministry of labour and employment,” the Economic Times quoted the EPFO as saying.

Further, it said any delay in grievance redressal amounts to bringing disrepute to the organisation, the heart of India’s social security system. In its order, EPFO said the intra-office issues must be instantly transferred to the regional office.

Last week, EPFO extended the date for filing applications for higher wage pensions from May 3 to June 26, 2023 to facilitate Supreme Court’s November 4, 2022 order. EPFO has received more than 12 lakh applications to date. It said the deadline has been extended after it received many requests from various quarters for time extension. It said the extension will provide “a larger window of opportunity and enable all eligible persons to file their applications.”.

In its May 2 order, EPFO said “The timeline is being extended to facilitate and provide ample opportunity to the pensioners/members so as to ease out any difficulty being faced by them. This has been decided after sympathetically considering the various demands received from employees, employers, and their associations.”