SKOCH prize, EPFO - Current Affairs Questions and Answers

ANSWER: Citizens Charter 2017

Explanation:
The Minister of State for Labour & Employment(IC), Shri Bandaru Dattatreya launched EPFO’s Citizens’ Charter 2017 and e-court management system in Bangalore on May 16th 2017.

Citizens’ Charter 2017 is an attempt to bring transparency and accountability on the part of EPFO and make service delivery system and grievance redressal mechanism more efficient.

Aim is that it delivers goods and services to its all stakeholders in a time bound manner with a reduced timeline from earlier timeline of 30 days.

The timeline in case of claim settlements is 10 days and 15 days in case of grievance redressal management.

The citizens’ charter has been launched with the vision of social security coverage to all employees as well as implementation of policies for benefit of all stakeholders with adequate support level of social security.

EPFO e-court Management System has been launched which is in tune with Digital India. The objective of the project is a transparent and electronic case management system which will cater to aspirations of all stakeholders - the employers, the employees, litigants and CBT.

It is a step towards paperless court system wherein court procedure of EPF & MP Act, 1952 and EPFAT will take place in a digital environment.

Further, in order to facilitate easy access to the tribunal, automated messages will be sent to the litigants on their registered mobile numbers on the status of their cases. The stakeholders can also track the individual cases online.

Now the parties can file all their paper / evidence / documents online and all the details along with status can be accessed online.

Updation is an important part of e-court management system in which digital case record will create a digital database which can be utilized to generate meaningful and accurate reports.

This is also an attempt to create paperless court procedure along with efficiency and transparency in the system.

ANSWER: 8.8

Explanation:
Finance Ministry has approved 8.7 percent interest on PF deposits for close to 5 crore subscribers of retirement body EPFO lower than 8.8 percent decided by the Central Board of Trustees. EPFO’s apex decision making body at this meeting has proposed an interim rate of interest at 8.8 percent to be credited to accounts of EPF subscribers for 2015-2016. Ministry of Finance has ratified interest rate of 8.7 percent marking the first time that Finance Ministry has not given concurrence to rate of interest on EPF as decided by CBT led by labour minister.

• EPFO has provided 8.75 percent rate of interest in 2013-2014 and 2014-2015. This was higher than 8.5 percent in 2012 and 8.25 percent in 2011
• Revision will be in keeping with the economic trends in the country

ANSWER: Ministry of Labour and Employment

Explanation:
- The Employees' Provident Fund Organisation is a statutory body of the Government of India under the Ministry of Labour and Employment.
- It administers a compulsory contributory Provident Fund Scheme, Pension Scheme and an Insurance Scheme.
- The schemes cover Indian workers as well as International workers.
- K.K. Jalan is the Central Provident Fund Commissioner

ANSWER: Both

Explanation:
- EPFO administers a compulsory contributory Provident Fund Scheme, Pension Scheme and an Insurance Scheme.
- The EPFO's apex decision making body is the Central Board of Trustees (CBT).
- On 1 October 2014, Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi launched universal account number for Employees covered by EPFO to enable PF number portability.
- It has won the National Award on e-Governance 2015-16 for launching the Universal Account Number (UAN).
- The UAN facility enables workers to transfer their provident fund deposits while switching jobs anywhere in India easily.

ANSWER: 2909

Explanation:
EPFO has invested INR 2909 within a span of 4 months in Exchange Traded Funds to maximise earnings. As per approval of CBT, EPFO is said to invest only 5% of its investment in ETF during this financial year. The EPFO has invested Rs 2,322.10 crore in ETFs during August-October on which it earned an annualised return of 1.52 percent.

ANSWER: 5000 Crore

Explanation:
The Employment Provident Fund Organisation - EPFO will invest around Rs 5,000 crore this fiscal through SBI Mutual Fund's two index linked ETFs, one to the BSE's Sensex and the other to NSE's Nifty. The decision comes after the labour ministry allowed EPFO to invest 5 to 15 % of its incremental corpus in equities through ETFs. Asked why EPFO was starting off with just 5% of the corpus when it has the mandate for 15%, EPFO Commissioner K.K. Jalan said that the organisation had decided to go slow. Adding that investing through ETF route reduces risk, Mr. Jalan said fund allocation could increase to as much as Rs 70 billion to Rs 80 billion next year and that the organisation will also consider investing in other ETFs. Currently, EPFO has 8.5 trillion rupees under management, most of it invested in government bonds.

ANSWER: 30 days

Explanation:
According to an order, the Labour Ministry had notified the changes to the three schemes for the purpose on 2nd July’15. EPFO had settled 1.29 crore claims in 2014-15, of which more than 90 per cent were disposed off within 20 days.

The cumulative figure regarding claim settlement for the current fiscal i.e; from April to June stood at 33.35 lakh claims, out of which 43% were settled within 3 days.

ANSWER: EPFO

Explanation:
Government has allowed investing 5 per cent of EPFO corpus in stock markets.

ANSWER: 5%

Explanation:
It will result into an inflow of around five thousand crore rupees into the stock markets during this fiscal. As per estimates, the EPFO's incremental deposits for 2014-15 would be around 80 thousand crore rupees.