Congress leader Jairam Ramesh strongly criticised the Centre on Friday for the alarming increase in rejection rates of Employees Provident Fund (EPF) final settlements. He described the past decade as an era of injustice – “anyay kaal” — where various communities have been deprived of their rightful entitlements.
Sharing a concerning report on X, the Congress General Secretary in-charge of communications highlighted that the rejection rates for EPF final settlements have surged from approximately 13 percent in 2017-2018 to a staggering 34 percent in 2022-2023.
“The defining feature of the Anyay-kaal of the last ten years has been that no community is able to get its full due: women are left out of the job market, the youth are unable to seek employment, and the farmers are unable to get adequate prices,” Ramesh wrote.
Ramesh expressed deep concern for workers, stating, “Even the shramik, the worker who earns his living through wages, is unable to access his/her own earnings. The EPFO, the Government-run organization that administers the Provident Fund for India’s workers, has seen a sharp rise in rejection rates for final settlement of Provident Fund (PF) claims. Around one in three claims for the final settlement of PF is now rejected – up from 13% in 2017-18. Each rejection is a slap in the face for our working families, and a cause of immense stress and anguish to them.”
The rejection of one in three EPF claims is not just a statistic but represents a significant blow to working families, causing immense stress and anguish, according to Ramesh. He attributed this trend to the “mismanaged” transition to an online claims processing system, which has left many workers struggling to access their entitled benefits.
Highlighting the gravity of the situation, Ramesh alleged that the policies of the EPFO have even pushed some retired workers to take their own lives. “The mismanaged shift to an online system for processing claims is the key reason for this denial. At least one retired worker has been driven to commit suicide by the insensitive and bureaucratic policies of the EPFO,” he claimed in his X post.
In response, he emphasized the Congress” commitment to justice for workers through its “Paanch Nyay Agenda”, where “Shramik Nyay” (justice for workers) stands as a core principle to ensure that no worker or their family is ever denied the full fruits of their labor.
EPFO is a social security organisation responsible for providing social security benefits in the form of provident, pension and insurance funds to the organised workforce of the country.
