Kamala Mills fire: Parents of deceased 1 Above staffer to get pension

Sarabjit was the only child of Samarendra and Basanti ParidaParents of the only staff member of 1Above restaurant who died in the Kamala Mills fire on December 29 2017 will now get a monthly pension This was possible due to provisions in the EPF Act which state that in case of an employee who dies during his employment period the claim will be settled immediately Officials at the Employees Provident Fund Organisation EPF Bandra office said this is the first such case there wherein an employees kin got these benefits despite the short span of his employment about three monthsSarabjit Parida 23 was a graduate in commerce and had done a course in hotel management He had already done five months of internship with J W Marriot in Indore and had accompanied his cousin Prakash Naik who was already working in a restaurant in Mumbai sometime in August 2017 Naik said Sarabjit had taken up a job in a restaurant in Chowpatty but was not enjoying work there and quit it within a week He then joined 1Above in October and was happy working there He was confident of getting promoted as a manger when the incident happened He was the only child of his parents who are working on a farm and were dependent on his earningsSamarendra and Basanti ParidaEPF clears pensionPankaj Raman Regional Provident Fund Commissioner Bandra said As we had carried out an inspection at 1Above before the fire and learnt about the demise of Parida in it later we traced his parents and completed all the formalities and have already cleared his pension whatever was contributed in the three months that he worked thereHe said as per their records as his UAN Universal Account Number and PAN Permanent Account Number cards were already linked to the EPF account they could easily reach out to his parents and after filling the necessary forms they have already started giving them a monthly pension of Rs 2266 his parents will get arrears from December 30 2017 and the pension payment order PPO was cleared on February 6 2018We processed all the papers within a short span of four working days after receiving all the forms duly filled in by the parents This is as per our Prime Minister Narendra Modis moto that social security is every workers right and in case of death of any working employee the claims should be settled at the earliest said RamanAnother EPF staffer added Apart from a pension of Rs 2266 the provident fund contribution of Rs 3460 and insurance of Rs 3939 for three months as per the table has been paid to the parents The pension amount will be paid to his father Samarendra Parida till he is alive and then to his mother Basanti after the demise of her husband till she is aliveFirst such case in EPF BandraWhen asked if this was being done for the first time as a special case the officer replied in the affirmative stating that this is the first such case in the EPF Bandra officeThere are provisions in the EPF act that say in case an employee dies during his employment period the claim will be settled immediately When contacted Samarendra who hails from a small village in Patapurbada Pratpada Bhuwaneshwar Odisha he could not understand Hindi or English When asked about the source of the money that EPF had to pay the parents lifelong an officer said We use the money that is in the corpus of the Central Board of Trustees Delhi who invest all EPF money and get returns on those investments which are used to provide social security to the next of kin of the deceased