The Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) gave an average interest of 8.67% to its account holders over the past three years up to FY2014-15.

Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya, while replying to a question in the Parliament, said the rate of interest during FY2015 and FY2014 have been declared at 8.75% and 8.50% during FY2012-13.

In the current financial year up to December 2014, EPFO invested a total of Rs3.59 lakh crore in various schemes, he added.

Similarly, EPFO invested Rs3.25 lakh crore in 2013-14, Rs3.77 lakh crore in 2012-13 and Rs2.37 lakh crore in 2011-12, the Minister said.

"The government prescribes investment pattern for investments of EPFO corpus. Presently, EPFO is following pattern of investment, 2013 notified by Ministry of Labour and Employment on 21 November 2013," Dattatreya said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.

He said the Central Board of Trustees (CBT) and Employees Provident Fund (EPF) in a meeting held in February this year relaxed investment guidelines with an objective to increase the earnings of the fund without compromising with safety and security of the fund.

EPFO invested the funds in its corpus in central and state government securities, special deposit schemes and public sector financial institutions, including private and sector bonds.

In reply to a separate question, the Minister said EPFO has been mandated to settle claims within 30 days from the date of its receipt.

 "At present, the Organisation is able to settle nearly two-third of all claims within 10 days of their receipt and the rest of the claims are settled in accordance with the mandate," Dattatreya said.

 He further said the process of settlement has been simplified and certain manual processes have been done away with, reduction of authority level from three to two levels.

Also, provision of electronic challan-cum-return, induction of National Electronic Fund Transfer, re-engineering the process of transfer of claims include some of the steps taken by EPFO for speedy disposal of claims.