New Delhi, Jun 24 (PTI): Retirement fund body EPFO subscribers may soon be able to withdraw their employees' provident fund (EPF) directly from their accounts through ATMs or other modes like UPI after linking their bank accounts with EPF.
A highly placed source said the labour ministry is working on a project where a certain proportion of the EPF will be frozen and a large chunk will be available for withdrawal through their bank account using various modes like UPI or ATM debit cards.
The source also said there are some software challenges to implementing this system, which are being resolved.
Presently, the members of the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) have to apply for withdrawal claims to access their EPF money, which is time-consuming.
Under the auto-settlement mode, the withdrawal claims are settled electronically without manual intervention within three days of filing the application form.
The limit of this auto-settlement mode has been raised to Rs 5 lakh on Tuesday from existing Rs 1 lakh.
This will facilitate a large number of EPFO members to access their EPF money within three days for illness, education, marriage, and housing purposes.
The EPFO, which has more than 7 crore members, had first introduced online auto-settlement of advance claims during the COVID-19 pandemic to provide quick assistance to those facing financial crunch.
However, all members have to file claims to access their own EPF.
The new system is being evolved to avoid this time-consuming process and reduce the burden of the EPFO, as over 5 crore claims mostly for withdrawing EPF are settled every year.
The source said that the EPFO cannot allow its members to withdraw money directly from the EPF accounts because the body does not have any banking licences.
However, the source said that the government wants to improve the services of the EPFO at par with banks.
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Batumi (Georgia), Jul 26 (PTI): Young Indian International Master Divya Deshmukh held her nerves to hold stalwart Koneru Humpy to a draw in game 1 of the FIDE Women's World Cup final, with both players having their share of opportunities to take the lead here on Saturday.
The draw with black means Humpy, the two-time World Rapid champion, holds a slight edge going in the second and final game under the classical chess rules in the two-game mini-match, and should the deadlock continue, games of shorter duration will be played to determine the winner.
Humpy employed the Queen's gambit accepted as black and it turned out to be a pretty fascinating game right out of the opening as Divya, 19, came up with a piece sacrifice early to deny the black king the right to castle.
Humpy was the first to err and, according to computers, Divya had things under control on the 14th move. However in her bid to recover the extra material, the Nagpur girl, who has secured a place in the Candidates tournament with her sterling performance here, missed a promising continuation.
What followed the exchange of all minor pieces and the ensuing queen and rook endgame gave enough counter play to both players. The game was eventually drawn after Humpy sacrificed her rook to force perpetual checks.
"The game saw an extremely sharp battle with the game ending in a draw in 41 moves. On move 7, Divya made her aggressive intentions clear by offering another pawn,
which looked like home preparation. Humpy made a practical decision of refraining from taking the pawn and a balanced position was reached by move 10 by white," said Grandmaster Pravin Thipsay, an Arjuna awardee and the first Indian to get a chess Grandmaster norm.
"However, instead of developing the undeveloped Knight, Humpy retreated the centralised Knight on move 10, giving huge positional advantage to Divya. Divya could have gained huge positional advantage on the 12th move by moving a rook. However, she chose to play for King side attack by sacrificing a piece instead.
"Humpy, too, erred at this stage and instead of moving the King to Queen side, moved it to the King side. Divya, on move 14, could have obtained a crushing attack by threatening a mate by developing her Queen. Instead she chose to exchange a pair of Bishops first, which enabled Humpy to defend her King by returning the piece," said Thipsay.
"Players thus reached a balanced Queen and two Rooks ending. Divya continued to play ambitiously and tried to attack Humpy’s King but the latter defended accurately and the game was drawn in 41 moves by perpetual check," he added.
In the play-off for the third place, Chinese players Zhongyi Tan, the former women's world champion and top seed Lei Tingjie also decided to split points out of a Queen’s gambit declined game.
The opening raised visions of a close contest between the two but having been knocked out of title race in the previous round, none of them wanted to take any huge risk. It was still a middle game when the players shook hands.
With the top two positions sealed for the Indians, the berth to the next Candidates is also assigned, while the player finishing third will also get an entry to the premier event scheduled for 2026.
Results: Divya Deshmukh (Ind) drew with Koneru Humpy (Ind); Zhongyi Tan (Chn) drew with Tingjie Lei (Chn).