A meeting of the Employees’ Provident Fund Organization has decided to hire two Chartered Accountant firms for the preparation of Annual Financial Statements of the EPFO, and to facilitate the automation of the process of preparation of financial statements.

The EPFO has organised the 109th Meeting of the Executive Committee, after re-constitution of the Committee on September 27, 2024. The meeting was chaired by Sumita Dawra, Secretary (Labour & Employment) and Chairperson of Executive Committee, Central Board of EPFO.

At the meeting, several important and significant matters were before the Committee for deliberations, recommendations, and approvals.

As an important initiative, the Executive Committee approved the hiring of two Chartered Accountant firms for the preparation of Annual Financial Statements of EPFO, and to facilitate the automation of the process of preparation of financial statements.

The Audited Annual Accounts of EPFO for the years 2021-22 and 2022-23 were placed before the Committee for consideration of recommendation to the Board, thus ensuring that the backlog of annual accounts was cleared.

The Committee gave directions that the audited accounts for 2023-24 should be prepared and presented in time.

Further, the Annual Report for the year 2023-24 on the functioning of EPFO was also considered by the Executive Committee.

Deliberating on the Annual Report, the Committee noted the steady growth on key performance parameters of the organization. The number of contributing establishments grew at 6.6 per cent(7.66 lakhs from 7.18 lakhs) while the number of contributing members grew at 7.6 per cent (7.37 crore from 6.85 crore) over the previous year.

The organization also saw an increase of 55.4 per cent in realizing arrear dues (Rs 5268 crore from 3390 crore) over the previous year. There was also an increase of 7.8per cent in the number of claims settled over the previous year (4.45 crore from 412.86 crore).

The Executive Committee recommended the report for adoption to the Central Board.

The Executive Committee also considered the draft New Compassionate Appointment Policy, 2024, with a goal to bring relief to the dependents and wards of many employees of EPFO, who had unfortunately died in harness, many of which had occurred during the Covid pandemic period.

Steps to enable centralized pension payment as well as the interventions in improving IT related software and hardware were discussed, and timelines for completion of overhaul of the IT system were noted at the meeting.