EPFO turns to NIC for modernisation

New Delhi: The modernization of the Employees Provident Fund, which has 40 million subscribers across the country, is now back in the hands of a government body - after Rs 60 million and seven years spent on a private consultant.

'Reinventing EPF' was launched in 2001 as a way to modernize one of the world's largest social security organisations to manage its corpus of over Rs 2 trillion through computerisation of records, distribution of smart cards and access to online accounts, as well as faster processing of withdrawal claims. The cost of the entire project for implementation in 120 sites is estimated at Rs 9 billion. Siemens Information Systems Limited (SISL) bagged the contract for executing the project at six sites for Rs 60 million.

This project, as a model for e-governance, was a top priority with its launch and progress mentioned in two Independence Day speeches by two separate prime ministers in 2001 and 2004. Seven years on, SISL was 'fired' by the EPFO Central Board of Trustees on January 24 for failing to implement the project. A few days later, on February 8, Labour Minister Oscar Fernandes wrote to Information Technology Minister D Raja asking the National Informatics Centre to take over the project. In the letter, Fernandes said that the reason for the delay had been the inability of SSIL to provide a workable application software for the redesigned process.