The Employees’ Pension Fund Organisation (EPFO) has initiated the process of assessing the financial consequences of the Supreme Court ruling by sending letters to individuals who requested an increased pension. The organisation has asked for Rs 2,000 crore in response and the action is viewed as the initial step in comprehending the financial impact of the court’s decision.
The EPFO is currently reviewing the initial financial consequences, which have been computed by the Actuary using specific assumptions. Nevertheless, the actuarial assessment will be an ongoing process and will be conducted for every batch of 50,000 demand letters that are dispatched. Subsequently, a comprehensive assessment will be conducted once all cases have been concluded.
To further ease the process, the EPFO is in the process of establishing an actuarial department at its headquarters. This department will be responsible for ensuring the use of practical assumptions and conducting a thorough actuarial review of reports provided by the valuer or consultant actuary.
In total, the EPFO has received 1.749 million applications for an increased pension, and it has reviewed 629,000 of these applications. Among these, approximately 527,000 applications required the EPFO to contact employers to request additional information or corrections for anomalies, while around 3,618 forms were rejected.
During a recent meeting of the EPFO’s Central Board of Trustees (CBT), the retirement fund manager mentioned that processing the applications is taking a lot of time. The CBT, which is the top decision-making body of the EPFO, was informed that it can only finish the actuarial analysis after dealing with all the applications.