Monthly Review meeting on Pendency and disposal of Public Grievances by MoLE
The Employees’ Provident Fund Organization (EPFO) of the Ministry of Labour & Employment in India has issued a directive to its officials regarding the increasing pendency of public grievances. The EPFO must promptly respond to grievances as a public organization, and delayed responses damage its reputation. The directive states that the first action on grievances must be taken immediately and in no case beyond three days. Additionally, grievances that can be immediately resolved must be liquidated immediately, and those with inter-office or technical issues must be transferred to the appropriate department without delay.
EMPLOYEES’ PROVIDENT FUND ORGANISATION
MINISTRY OF LABOUR & EMPLOYMENT. GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
Head Office Ge
Bhavishva Nidhi Bhawan. 23. Bhikaijzi Carma Place, New Dethi- 110066
No.CSD/2023/REVIEWMEETING/E-53499/ 474
Dated:–08/05/2023
To,
The Addl. CPFCs (HQ)/ Addl. CPFCs of the Zones
All RPFCs in charge of the Regional offices
Subject: – Monthly Review meeting on Pendency and disposal of Public Grievances by MoLE- Continuous increase in pendency of grievances.
Reference: – CSD/2022/REVIEWMEETINGS/E-53499 /11793 dated 27/10/2022
Madam/Sir,
You are aware that the EPFO forms the fulcrum of the social security architecture of the country and being a public organization, the organization has to promptly respond to the grievances. While timely and prompt resolution of the grievances strengthens the public image as well as the trust reposed by the citizens in general and members in particular, delayed response to the grievance is inimical to such image while bringing disrepute to the organization.
In this connection, Attention is invited towards the subject and reference cited above wherein direction was issued for having NIL Pendency beyond 15 days and for fixation of responsibility of pendency beyond 30 days. Further, directions were issued for regular review by the Zonal ACCs and concerned RPFCs on regular basis. Directions for such liquidation of grievances have been issued time and again in the Review meetings conducted by the Headquarters.
It has however been observed that there has been continued increased pendency of grievance beyond 15 days and 30 days inviting critical comments from the MoLE . The pendency has been analyzed at the Head office and following directions are issued herein for scrupulous compliance.
- It has been observed that in the significant number of the cases, the first action on the grievances landing in the login of the ROs is taken after considerable delay. Such delayed first response causes inevitable increase in the average disposal days, which must be avoided.
- It is therefore directed that the first action on such grievances is to be taken immediately and in no case beyond 3 days. It is further directed to ensure that :-
a. Immediately resolvable grievances may be liquidated immediately. These may be grievances which are related to intra-office matters and decisional sphere lies with the concerned RO itself.
b. Grievances having Inter-office issues may be identified immediately and may be transferred to the Concerned ROs immediately without causing any delay.
c. Grievances having Technical issues may be identified and may be transferred to the technical team without delay. Such transfer has to be effected after being sure of such non-resolution within available set up of existing software system and with the approval of RPFC-I/OIC of the Regional office wherein the RPFC-I/OIC should certify that the matter is required to be referred to the NDC for resolution. The grievances being routed to NDC has to be done after raising issue tracker details of which has to be mentioned invariably on the portal itself.
3. Grievances having involvement of multiple Regional offices/Head office division may require the documents to be shared with the other Regional offices/Head office. Such sharing of the documents may be done on the grievance portal itself or the same could be forwarded by email with details of such email be shared on the portal for expeditious resolution.
4. The Zonal offices as supervisory arm of the Head office are requested to regularly monitor the Regional offices in pendency and disposal of the grievances. The Regional offices are requested to share the login credentials of the grievance portals with the jurisdictional Zonal office while ensuring that the confidentiality and integrity of such sharing is not compromised with. The Zonal offices may depute a nodal officer posted at the zonal offices for the same. The sharing of login credentials will be only for view and monitoring purpose only.
5. The Zonal offices shall review their jurisdictional Regional offices on regular basis and send such minutes of the Review by email on acc.csd[at]epfindia.gov.in and rc.cpgrams[at]epfindia.gov.in and shall fix responsibility in respect of grievances crossing 30 days after perusal of the Action history/ATR seeing therein the action/inaction causing such delay in resolution.
6. DPG returned cases may be seen for specific query of the DPG and those queries may be replied/redressed and the same has to be invariably vetted by the RPFC-I/OICs of the Regional offices. If the same could not be redressed to member’s satisfaction, intimation to the member by Email as well as other electronic medium may be done citing the specific rules/procedures as the case may be. This may be recorded in the reply for perusal of the MoLE/DPG.