12th July, 2010, Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) started a value added service for its subscribers. Intimation to subscribers regarding settlement of claims will be sent to any subscriber who has submitted his mobile number while submitting his claim.
The service provider for this is BSNL. EPFO offices located across the country will pump their claim settlement data to the FTP server placed at National Data Center at New Delhi on a daily basis. BSNL will collect, and consolidate it for scheduling bulk SMS to all members every day.
Mr. Samirendra Chatterjee Central Provident Fund Commissioner launched SMS service in a function at New Delhi by sending first batch of 245 SMS by click of a button.
The function was attended by senior EPFO officers at Head Office and BSNL officers. Speaking at the occasion CPFC congratulated Information Service division in making small beginning towards using technology in improving service delivery. He shared that once this stabilizes, the plan is to communicate with subscriber’s employers and in-house officers for action that may require immediate attention.
A special awareness campaign amongst subscribers to share their mobile numbers while submitting claims is planned to make the best of this facility. The NEFT mode of payment earlier launched by EPFO has already started cutting down time involved in settlement of claim and its credit to the members.