PF News: After approval, EPFO members will be able to withdraw PF up to ₹ 5 lakh through auto mode.
PF News: The Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has decided to increase the limit of Auto Settlement Advance Claim (ASAC) from ₹ 1 lakh to ₹ 5 lakh to promote ‘Ease of Living’ for its 7.5 crore members.
Sumita Dawra, Secretary, Ministry of Labor and Employment, approved the proposal in the 113th meeting of the Executive Committee of the Central Board of Trustees (CBT) held last week. Now this recommendation will be sent to the CBT for final approval.
The meeting was held on March 28 in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, in which EPFO Central Provident Fund Commissioner Ramesh Krishnamurthy also participated. After getting approval, EPFO members will be able to withdraw PF up to ₹ 5 lakh through auto mode.
Auto mode claim settlement was introduced for the first time in April 2020 for treatment of illness. In May 2024, this limit was increased from ₹ 50,000 to ₹ 1 lakh. Now this limit is being increased five times, which will give great benefit to the members.
Now auto-claim will be available for education, marriage and housing
EPFO has now implemented auto mode settlement for three more categories – education, marriage and housing. Earlier, members could make PF withdrawal only for illness/hospitalization.
Under this new system, claims are now being processed in just 3 days, with 95% of claims being settled automatically.
In the financial year 2024-25, EPFO has so far settled 2.16 crore auto-claims, which is historically high compared to 89.52 lakh in 2023-24. Along with this, the claim rejection rate has been reduced from 50% to 30%. EPFO has implemented auto-claim solution through IT system, making the process completely digital without any human intervention.
Now withdrawal facility will be available through UPI and ATM
EPFO is soon going to launch a new revolutionary system, under which members will be able to withdraw their PF funds through UPI (Unified Payments Interface) and ATM. The Ministry of Labor and Employment has approved the proposal of NPCI and this facility is likely to start by May or June this year. This system can also be implemented for other schemes like General Provident Fund (GPF) of government employees and Public Provident Fund (PPF) of banks in future.
