The Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) running social security schemes like Employees Provident Fund, will go paperless in another year, Union Labour and Employment Minister Santoshkumar Gangwar said on Tuesday.
Once EPFO, which has already launched a few online services, goes digital, the subscribers need not visit the offices to their work done, Gangwar told reporters on the sidelines of a function to lay foundation stone for Regional Provident Office in Salem at a cost of Rs.19.5 crore..

When asked about labour reforms, he said that the process was on to amalgamate all labour laws into four codes, for which talks were going on with various employers and trade unions.

Despite more than one crore companies and firms, 80 lakh registered and rest unregistered in India, only 10 lakh units are registered in EPFO, he said adding that the Ministry was taking efforts to increase it to 20 lakh, by bringing the units which have more than 20 employees.

“The Government is also taking steps to provide PF, pension and insurance to nearly 40 crore labourers in the unorganised sector,” he said.

Though the Government has allocated Rs.1,000 crore under Pradhan Mantri Rojgar Protsahan Yojana, with the objective of promoting employment generation by which employers would be provided an incentive for enhancing employment by reimbursing the 8.33 per cent EPS contribution made by the employer in respect of new employment, only seven lakh employees had joined the scheme, Gangwar said.

“Since there is unutilised fund in the scheme, he asked the employers to come forward to generate more employment. Under the Prime Ministers Housing scheme some 25 industries have joined and the Government wanted more such industries to join this scheme,” he said.