Some PF staffers moonlight for private sector: vigilance report

Official held after being caught receiving payment.

October 29, 2021 11:02 pm | Updated 11:17 pm IST - NEW DELHI

16 PF staffers were found to be involved in such activities at a single PF office.

16 PF staffers were found to be involved in such activities at a single PF office.

Officials entrusted with the safekeeping of workers’ retirement corpus worth lakhs of crores have been found to be working on the side to further private employers’ interests instead, in a blatant and widespread violation of civil services rules in PF offices across the country.

The Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has ‘discovered’ that several officers and staff are offering their ‘services’ to private firms in return for monetary remuneration routed directly to them or to their family members.

 

While one officer has been arrested after being caught red-handed ‘negotiating and accepting illegal payments' from an employer, 16 such PF staffers were found to be involved in such activities at a single PF office. In a separate case, a social security assistant was trapped in the act of helping a firm secure a PF code number.

“Recently, during surprise checks in EPFO offices several instances of staff engaging in private PF consultancy work were discovered,” the retirement fund manager’s vigilance wing has flagged in a note warning all personnel of strong action for violating government rules that bar them from taking up any private sector work.

“In some of the offices, the practice of PF consultancy is so entrenched that it has come to be viewed as normal. Recent joint surprise check in one office yielded incriminating evidence against as many as 16 officials which demonstrates how pervasive the malaise has become,” the vigilance wing has pointed out in a missive to top PF commissioners across regions on Thursday.

Also read | ₹37 crore of PF savings withdrawn illegally

“Instances of staff actively engaging in consultancy abound and have only increased over the years with no fear or understanding of the consequences,” said the communiqué, urging senior officers to stop ‘ignoring or taking a lenient view’ on such matters and take prompt action with ‘requisite gravity’ against all such officials.

Calling for ‘random surprise checks to detect and prevent such cases’ as well as a close watch on ‘suspected cases’, EPFO’s vigilance wing said: “The matter needs to be handled with requisite gravity and the cases notices should be dealt with firmly and swiftly under the disciplinary rules and exemplary punishment meted out to the guilty.”

Also read | CBI books three EPFO officials for multi-crore fraud

Coming on the back of a multi-crore fraud in a Mumbai EPF office where several staffers connived to siphon out funds from the country’s largest retirement fund’s corpus, the letter approved by the Central PF Commissioner (CPFC) Mukhmeet Singh Bhatia, stressed that the ‘reputational risk to the organisation’ by the conduct of employees moonlighting for the private sector is ‘incalculable’.

“It is observed that the disciplinary authorities often tend to ignore or take a lenient view when such misconduct is noticed and the delinquent officials are allowed to get away without disciplinary action,” the directive dated October 28 recorded.

Mr. Bhatia is the Director General of the Employees’ State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) but has been given additional charge of the EPFO following the previous CPFC Sunil Barthwal’s transfer as Secretary to the Ministry of Labour and Employment which oversees the EPFO and ESIC.

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