- 85 lakh new members enrolled with EPFO during May 2024
- Over 58 per cent of total new members added in May 2024 belong to 18-25 age group
- Gender-wise analysis of payroll data unveils that out of the new members added during the month, around 2.48 lakh are new female members
- IT infrastructure concerns: Officers seek Union Labour Minister’s intervention
NE BUSINESS BUREAU
NEW DELHI, JULY 20
The Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) added 1.95 million net new members in May 2024, the highest ever monthly addition since the release of the first payroll data in April 2018, on the back of increased job opportunities, a growing awareness of employee benefits, and the effectiveness of its outreach programs, the Ministry of Labour and Employment said on Saturday.
Further, the year-over-year analysis shows a growth of 19.62% in net member additions compared to May 2023. This surge in membership can be attributed to numerous factors, including increased employment opportunities, a growing awareness of employee benefits, and the effectiveness of EPFO’s outreach programs.
The data indicates that around 9.85 lakh new members have enrolled during May 2024. There is an increase of 10.96% in the new members from the previous month of April 2024 and 11.5% increase from the previous year May 2023.
A noticeable aspect of the data is the dominance of the 18-25 age group, constituting a significant 58.37% of the total new members added in May 2024. This is in consonance with the earlier trend which indicates that most individuals joining the organized workforce are youth, primarily first-time job seekers.
In addition, the net payroll data for the age group 18-25 for May 2024 is the highest since the first payroll data was published.
The payroll data highlights that approximately 14.09 lakh members exited and subsequently re-joined EPFO. This figure depicts year-over-year growth of 23.47% compared to May 2023. These members switched their jobs and re-joined the establishments covered under the ambit of EPFO and opted to transfer their accumulations instead of applying for final settlement thus, safeguarding long-term financial well-being and extending their social security protection.
Gender-wise analysis of payroll data unveils that out of the new members added during the month, around 2.48 lakh are new female members. This figure exhibits year over year growth of 12.15% compared to May 2023. Also, the net female member addition during the month stood at around 3.69 lakh reflecting year over year growth of 17.24% compared to May 2023. The surge in female member additions is indicative of a broader shift towards a more inclusive and diverse workforce.
State-wise analysis of payroll data denotes that net member addition is highest in the five states/ UTs of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, and Haryana. These states constitute around 58.24% of net member addition, adding a total of 11.36 lakh net members during the month. Of all the states, Maharashtra is leading by adding 18.87% of net members during the month.
Month-on-month comparison of industry-wise data displays significant growth in the members working in establishments engaged in the industries viz. Expert services, Building and construction industry, Garments making, Textiles, Elec, mech or gen engg products, Engineers – engg. Contractors, Trading – commercial establishments, Beedi making, Electronic media companies in private sector etc. Of the total net membership, around 42.33% addition is from expert services (consisting of manpower suppliers, normal contractors, security services, miscellaneous activities etc.).
The above payroll data is provisional since the data generation is a continuous exercise, as updating employee record is a continuous process. The previous data gets updated every month. From the month of April-2018, EPFO has been releasing payroll data covering the period September 2017 onwards. In monthly payroll data, the count of members joining EPFO for the first time through Aadhaar validated Universal Account Number (UAN), existing members exiting from coverage of EPFO and those who exited but re-joined as members, is taken to arrive at net monthly payroll.
IT Infrastructure concerns: Officers seek Union Labour Minister’s intervention
Employees’ Provident Fund Officers’ Association has sought the Union Labour Minister’s intervention to improve the information technology infrastructure of the retirement fund body.
In a letter to the minister earlier this week, the EPF Officers’ Association (EPFOA) said it has been regularly submitting requests for urgent interventions to upgrade the EPF IT systems software, hardware, IT manpower – which are causing acute strain on EPF manpower and adversely affecting EPFO services.
The situation has now turned serious with officers and offices reporting significant system deficiencies on a daily basis, the association said.
Severely inadequate EPFO IT systems and resultant service bottlenecks are adversely affecting EPF services, it added.
The EPFO application software serves as the foundational component of its service delivery infrastructure.
The body said it is the primary platform through which our regional offices process and adjudicate member claims.
In recent times, the software has exhibited significant instability, characterised by frequent outages, it stated.
Over the past several weeks, the application’s performance has deteriorated, manifesting in frequent system slowdowns, involuntary user logout and complete system failures, it pointed out.
Previously, the EPFO management attributed the software performance issues to concurrent user logins.
However, it said, the situation has escalated to a critical juncture where system crashes and slowdowns occur even in the absence of heavy user traffic.
It has been observed that field offices have reported system failures during off-peak hours as well, it stated.
The exigency of a comprehensive overhaul of the EPFO application software has been apparent for quite some time now, it noted.
Despite this critical need, the implementation of such an overhaul has been repeatedly postponed for reasons that remain obscure, the body added.
While the EPFO is a financially robust organisation independent of the government administrative funding, the delay in launching the 2.0 version of the application software stands in stark contrast to the rapid technological advancements achieved by other departments, such as the Income Tax department, it stated.
This discrepancy suggests a systemic failure to acknowledge the gravity of the situation, EPFOA pointed out.
Any technological challenges have been vehemently denied, and emphasis placed on purported progress, it added.
It is reasonable to speculate that the claim settlement process would be exponentially accelerated with a fully functional software system.
“We respectfully urge your immediate attention to the escalating frustration experienced by EPFO officers and staff due to the persistent deficiencies of the application software and perceived unresponsiveness of upper management,” EPFOA said in the letter.
A comprehensive evaluation of the software by leading industry experts is imperative to diagnose the root causes of the issues and develop a contemporary software solution commensurate with the EPFO’s status as the world’s largest social security organisation, it suggested.
“Over the past thirty months, we have consistently brought to the attention of the CPFC the ongoing critical issues affecting the EPFO’s IT infrastructure,” the body said.
