The burial of the seven-year-old project to modernise the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation has been put on hold, for now. The EPFO’s Central Board of Trustees, that met on Thursday and cleared an EPF rate of 8.5 per cent for 2007-08, deliberated for over 100 minutes over the proposal to terminate the contract with the consultant implementing the modernisation programme.

The board, which already has a technical committee for monitoring the project, sought clarity and details from the Government about the alternative proposal mooted in the agenda as a substitute for the holistic reforms underway since 2001. The proposal, based on a committee appointed by the Union Labour Ministry headed by CSIR’s IT division head V K Gupta, was to substitute the comprehensive project with a piecemeal approach.

The Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation was asked to collaborate with the Government’s National Informatics Centre (NIC) ‘for faster implementation’ and use its expertise and resources in form of ‘empanelled vendors’ for software, hardware and networking. But it’s not clear how the NIC will help beyond procurement matters—it has no expertise in rationalising business processes or in accountancy—both crying needs at the EPFO. The Gupta panel includes a senior NIC official and its proposal to scrap the existing contract was finalised in consultation with the Director General of NIC.

After board members, irked with the recent turn of events, asked for details about the alternative plan, it was decided that the Gupta panel would be asked to make a presentation to the board’s technical committee.

... contd.