Jammu, Aug 28: Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) J&K and Ladakh conducted “Nidhi Apke Nikat 2.0”, a participatory outreach programme at DC Office Samba, Jammu on Monday, in association with the district administration.
Regional Provident Fund Commissioner, Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh, Rizwan Uddin, inaugurated the session. He explained the importance of social security in today’s scenario. He highlighted the key features of the Employees’ Pension Scheme, 1995 and the Employees’ Deposit Linked Insurance Scheme, 1976. These two prominent social security schemes are being extended to workers in J&K and Ladakh from November 2019. He also discussed the features of these schemes in detail.
Considering the relevance of Nidhi Aapke Nikat, the participants were encouraged to raise their issues. Rizwan Uddin informed that the nominee of an employee (having been a member of Provident Fund for at least one year of employment) whose death occurs while being in service is entitled to a minimum of Rs 2.5 lakh of insurance amount.
“Maximum insurance under the EDLI scheme is Rs 7 lakh. EPFO is paying monthly pensions to the families of employees who met with accidents a few months ago. Wife and children of deceased employees are entitled to the pension. The wife would get a pension till her lifetime,” he said.
The workshop lasted for more than one hour, where the PF Commissioner heard the issues being faced by the establishments and employees. A handholding and interactive session continued for another hour in which various stakeholders went live and learnt how to deal with the problems faced by them with the help of Bipin Kumar, EO/AO.
The programme focused on reaching out to the stakeholders, creating awareness about schemes of EPFO viz PF, Pension and Insurance, addressing queries and grievances of stakeholders, and taking feedback and suggestions from stakeholders, employees, employers, Industry Association, and Contractors.
The PF Commissioner appealed to all industries to extend social security benefits to all eligible employees from the very first day of their joining the firm. A handholding session was also held to sensitize the employers about PF provisions and modalities.
The participants of the programme were also made aware of important initiatives of EPFO such as e-Nomination, Online Claim Filing, Principal Employer Dashboard, updation of KYC in UAN, etc. Grievances related to the updation of member profiles through joint declaration and death cases were heard and registered during the program.