Digital submission of Joint Option Form (JOF)

 By e-mail

FORSE/SAIL-C/0523

24/02/2023

To

Ms Soma Mondal,

Chairperson,

Steel Authority of India Ltd,

Ispat Bhavan, Lodhi Road, 

New Delhi – 110 003.

Sub: Digital submission of Joint Option Form (JOF) for Higher Pension.

Madam,

This is to bring to your kind information that as per the latest Circular of EPFO No. Pension /2022/56259/6541 dated 20.02.2023 only digitally submitted copies of JOF by eligible pensioners will be accepted by EPFO offices for Higher Pension. At the sametime, the running banner/message at the EPFO Website link https://www.epfindia.gov.in/site_en/index.php reads as

“Supreme Court Judgement dated 04.11.2022 in the matter Special Leave Petition (c) Nos. 8658-8659 of 2019 "In compliance of the direction contained in the para 44 (iii) & (iv) read with Para 44(v) of the judgement (for employees who were in service prior to 01.09.2014 and continued to be in service on or after 01.09.2014 but could not exercise joint option under erstwhile proviso to para 11(3) of EPS-1995), online facility for filing joint option is coming soon"  

This clearly means that online facility is yet to be provided by EPFO. We are afraid that as a result this delay may, in turn, lead to further delay in meeting the last date for submission of JOF causing disqualification of the eligible pensioners by EPFO.

In view of the above, we request you to kindly (i) take up the issue of with EPFO for extending the date for JOF submission and (ii) set up a help desk in each SAIL plant/ unit for providing assistance to eligible SAIL pensioners in online submission of Joint Option Form as and when EPFO provides the link.

With thanks and kind regards,

Yours faithfully,

For & on behalf of Federation of Retired SAIL Employees

(V.N.Sharma)  Chairman

(Ram Agar Singh)  General Secretary