EPFO officers raise concern over inadequate IT infra

New Delhi: The Employees' Provident Fund Officers' Association (EPFOA) has sought the intervention of the Union Labour Minister to improve the information technology infrastructure of the retirement fund body. In a letter to the minister earlier this week, the EPFOA emphasized the urgent need to upgrade the EPF IT systems – software, hardware, and IT manpower – which are causing significant strain on EPF staff and adversely affecting EPFO services.

The situation has become critical, with officers and offices reporting significant system deficiencies daily, the association said. The severely inadequate EPFO IT systems and resultant service bottlenecks are negatively impacting EPF services, it added. The EPFO application software is the foundational component of its service delivery infrastructure.

The body highlighted that this software is the primary platform through which regional offices process and adjudicate member claims. Recently, the software has shown significant instability, characterized by frequent outages, it stated. Over the past several weeks, the application's performance has deteriorated, leading to frequent system slowdowns, involuntary user logouts, and complete system failures, it pointed out.

Previously, the EPFO management attributed the software performance issues to concurrent user logins. However, the situation has now escalated to a critical juncture where system crashes and slowdowns occur even in the absence of heavy user traffic.

It has been observed that field offices have reported system failures during off-peak hours as well, it stated. The exigency of a comprehensive overhaul of the EPFO application software has been apparent for quite some time now, it noted. Despite this critical need, the implementation of such an overhaul has been repeatedly postponed for reasons that remain unclear, the body added.

While the EPFO is a financially robust organization independent of government administrative funding, the delay in launching the 2.0 version of the application software stands in stark contrast to the rapid technological advancements achieved by other departments, such as the Income Tax department, it stated. This discrepancy suggests a systemic failure to acknowledge the gravity of the situation, the EPFOA pointed out.

Any technological challenges have been vehemently denied, with an emphasis placed on purported progress, it added. It is reasonable to speculate that the claim settlement process would be exponentially accelerated with a fully functional software system.

"We respectfully urge your immediate attention to the escalating frustration experienced by EPFO officers and staff due to the persistent deficiencies of the application software and the perceived unresponsiveness of upper management," EPFOA said in the letter.

A comprehensive evaluation of the software by leading industry experts is imperative to diagnose the root causes of the issues and develop a contemporary software solution commensurate with the EPFO's status as the world's largest social security organization, it suggested.

"Over the past thirty months, we have consistently brought to the attention of the CPFC the ongoing critical issues affecting the EPFO’s IT infrastructure," the body said.