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Journalism of Courage
An estimated 40 million people are affected by the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO). Indeed, the implications are broader, since in all social security delivery the UPA’s proclivities are against private sector delivery; instead, government delivery is preferred. Today, PF primarily means the organised sector. However, the UPA’s model of some elements of social security delivery for the unorganised sector is based on the EPFO. There are issues of guaranteed returns under PF and what PF means, over and above gratuity and pensions. But in a narrower sense, the EPFO is inefficient and even corrupt. The use of information technology can increase transparency, reduce transaction costs, remove discretion and increase speed. That’s the heart of e-governance, and though there are documented successes in different sectors and states, the EPFO would have been the big one. Its reinvention was launched with fanfare seven years ago with the aim of re-engineering ancient business processes, and replacing manual computing with computerisation. It is tragic that the task had to be spearheaded by the labour ministry, not the most reform-minded and nimble of ministries. Witness its dithering over labour market reforms, not to be interpreted as changes in the Industrial Disputes Act alone. When was the last time the labour ministry mentioned the Second National Commission on Labour?
Who is now culpable for the resources already sunk into the erstwhile reform plan and the opportunity costs of delayed reform and non-reform? There is limited scrutiny, despite Parliament, of the misuse of public money. Principles of tort and extracting compensation should apply to such cases. On a broader point, labour should be moved from the Concurrent to the State List of the Seventh Schedule. Not only will that push reforms, it will eliminate the need for a Union labour ministry.
