The Union Government of India, has taken the decision to create 4 specific board-level committees to analyze and delve into the functioning of the Employees’ Provident Fund Organization (EPFO). Each of the 4 new committees will take a peep under the hood of how different aspects of the EPFO function which are – establishment related issues, futuristic implementation of social security, digital capacity building & pension related issues. The new committees or sub-committees will look into the aforementioned aspects of EPFO functioning.

The formation of these panels was approved by the chair of the Central Board of Trustees of EPFO Bhupinder Yadav who is also the Union Minister of Labour & Employment. The newly approved committees have been notified on 27^th November and they have a tenure of 3 months. Currently, the EPFO handles a fund of more than ₹15 lakh crores of retirement savings.

The 2 committees which will be inspecting the functions of the EPFO with regard to ‘Pension Related Issues/Reforms and ‘IT & Communication’ will be led by Labour Secretary Sunil Barthwal, who was in charge of the EPFO as Central PF Commissioner until late September of this year. An 8-member panel has been instructed to submit a report for suggestions on matters pertaining to pension reforms for universalization of social security. There already exists a board-level committee to review, modify & better the Employees’ Pension Scheme (EPS) of 1995.

The EPS & EDLI (Employees’ Deposit Linked Insurance) Implementation Committees are usually headed by the CPFC. Meanwhile, the committee appointed to look into IT & Communications to build the digital capacity of EPFO comprises of 10-members and it has been asked to provide solutions to improve service delivery for EPFO members. The committee assigned to look into building digital capacity of the EPFO is also tasked with finding solutions for effective media & communication with stakeholders.

The 2 other committees will be headed by Rameshwar Teli who is the Minister of State for Labour & Employment. The committees will be dealing with the workings of the establishment aspects, internal human resources and ways to improve EPFO coverage, decreasing related litigation issues. There will be a keen interest in the proceedings of the inspection of the human resources committee as there were hurried transfers & appointments for more than 100 senior EPFO officials in July this year.

 Today Last Date of EPFO Deadline to Link UAN to Aadhaar Numbers

The EPFO had originally postponed the deadline for members to link their Aadhaar card nos. to their UAN (Universal Account Number) from 31^st August 2021 to 30^th November 2021. The move to link Aadhaar number with the UAN was made necessary this year after a revision to section 142 of the Code of Social Security 2020.

“In partial modification of the Circular No. WSU/15(1)2019/ATR/529 dated 15.06.2021 under reference, it is informed that the date of completing the seeding and verification of Aadhaar with UAN, is hereby extended till 30.11.2021 and accordingly, the date in Para 1 of the referred Circular dated 15.06.2021 mentioned as 01.09.2021 may be read as 01.12.2021,” stated in a statement made public by the EPFO on 15^th November 2021.

The consequences of not linking UAN with Aadhaar number are many but the primary one would be the member will not receive employer’s contribution. The requirements for filing Electronic Challan Cumulative Return have also been modified by EPFO, saying the company can only file for employees who have linked UAN to Aadhaar number. Employers can apply for a separate ECR for non-Aadhaar seeded UAN once the Aadhaar seeding procedure is finished. Most employees will face payment delays in their account till the data is approved by employers & authorities and will also be incapable of withdrawing PF funds from their accounts.

The EPFO is also proposing to open membership to previous members who have exited the scheme with a minimum contribution of ₹500 per month which could benefit citizens who have just lost their job or moved jobs from formal sector to a job in the informal sector voluntarily. The EPFO is currently working on a system to allow previous members of the EPFO re-join by paying a monthly contribution of ₹500 or 12% of their monthly income.

The EPFO is analysing the effect this new scheme could have on the EPS, EPF & EDLI schemes, post which the above scheme will be finalised. The Social Security Code 2020 allows the EPFO to add new schemes to its offerings. The introduction of this new scheme could greatly benefit individuals have a retirement corpus fund, avail fixed returns at higher interest rates while also leading to growth of the EPFO fund and number of EPFO members.

An Enforcement Officer of the Employees’ Provident Fund Organization (EPFO) was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) earlier this week after an investigation of a bribery case. The prime suspects of the investigation were accused of opening a false examination of a firm’s employees provident fund payments. The arrested Enforcement Officer of EPFO was posted at Jagadhari in Haryana and was facing an allegation of asking/accepting ₹1 lakh as bribe in a suit filed by a private individual.

According to EPFO officials, the Central Bureau of Investigation – the central body which is assigned for investigation into cases of corruption across India – discovered that the person who accepted the bribe of ₹1 lakh was identified as Ashok Gupta – who accepted the bribe amount from the petitioner while following orders of EPFO Enforcement Officer Anil Kumar. Enforcement Officer Anil Kumar was later apprehended when the CBI conducted searches at the premises of the prime suspects in the case.

The CBI had laid a trap to nab the identified suspects and Ashok Gupta was apprehended during the operation who led to EPFO Enforcement Officer Anil Kumar. Both prime suspects, arrested, were to be produced before the court of justice to undergo trial this week. The suspects – the EPFO Enforcement Officer & his aide were booked by the CBI on the basis of a complaint filed by a private individual claiming the EPFO at Jagadhari had started an inquiry against the complainant’s firm under the Civil Procedure Code long after all dues for the EPF amount for the period from November 2018 to July 2019 were deposited.

During the investigation, the EPFO had asked the complainant to contact another person for acquiring clearance in the enquiry and thus the complainant came across Ashok Gupta, who, allegedly demanded a bribe of ₹1 lakh on behalf of the Enforcement Officer of the EPFO to settle the enquiry.

The Employees’ Provident Fund Organization (EPFO) will now not require Pension Fund (PF) account holders (employees) to transfer their PF account from their previous employer to their new employer thanks to a decision by the EPFO to give the green signal for development of centralized IT-enabled systems by C-DAC (Centre for Development of Advanced Computing). An employee’s PF account number can remain the same even if they change jobs after this major decision by the EPFO.

The new functionalities will be shifted to a central database in phases to ensure smoother roll-out, improved operations and easy service delivery. As part of the new system, all the existing accounts of a PF member will be merged into one and also prevent duplication of accounts. This key decision was taken during the 229^th meeting of the EPFO Central Board of Trustee held on 20^th November 2021, headed by Minister for Labour and Employment Bhupender Yadav. As per the existing rules, an employee who is a member of the PF must complete paperwork & application at both their previous and new employers for transfer of PF account, as this is a tedious process, a lot of the members of PF just open a new PF account with their new employer.

While the UAN of the account will be the same, the new account with the new employer will not display the previous existing balance in the account with the old employer – these are the 2 main things which will be changed as the EPFO approved a centralized database development and allowing members to use their existing account with a new employer after change of job.

In another decision, the EPFO has now empowered the Finance Investment and Audit Committee (FIAC) – which is the advisory body of the EPFO for investments and strategies, to make decision on the investment options for investments to be made in all asset classes recognized as investments by the Government of India. The EPFO has also decided to form 4 new sub-committees for establishment related matters + futuristic implementation of social security code and digital capacity building + pension related issues.

These new sub-committees will be comprised of EPFO board members from the employers’ and employees’ sides as well as government representatives. The sub-committees for establishment related issues & futuristic implementation of social security code will be headed by the Minister of State for Labour & Employment. The other 2 sub-committees for digital capacity building and pension related issues will be headed by the Union Labour & Employment Secretary.

EPFO Adds Net 15 lakh New Subscribers in September 2021

As the number of jobs being created in India is on a steady climb, growth in the economic activity heading towards pre-Covid levels, the EPFO added more than 13 lakh net subscribers to the PF in the month of September 2021 which is about 3% more than September 2020 and a growth of more than 1 lakh subscribers compared to August 2021 according to the provisional payroll data. Of the 15+ lakh new subscribers added in September, approximately 8.9 lakh members were new members registered for the first time.

More than 6 lakh members left & re-joined the EPFO by changing jobs. The age group of 18-25 years had the highest number of net enrolments with about 7 lakh net enrolments. This indicates that many first-time job seekers are joining the organised sector workforce in large numbers and have contributed around 47.39 % of total net subscriber additions in September 2021. The states of Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat & Haryana registered a net 9+ lakh net subscribers accounting for 61% of the net payroll addition. The payroll data will always be provisional as the numbers change on a daily basis due to new additions & closing of PF accounts.

At present, the EPFO as a retirement fund management organization has more than 6 crore members with a total fund of more than ₹12 lakh crores.

What is TRRN?

The full form of TRRN is Temporary Return Reference Number. TRRN is the number which is generated by the EPFO against the payment transaction while a PF account holder or an employer makes an online payment towards the PF monthly contribution.

How to Check TRRN Status Online Explained on YouTube:

How to Check TRRN Status Online?

• Go to the google search bar
• Type TRRN status and click enter
• EPFO TRRN Details official website URL will be displayed
• Upon clicking on the EPFO TRRN details URL you will be directed to the unified portal-EPFO website
• Enter the TRRN number and enter the captcha code mentioned below
• Your TRRN status will be displayed where you can find the details like your TRRN number, confirmation of the payment, challan type etc.

EPFO TRRN Status check online – https://unifiedportal-epfo.epfindia.gov.in/publicPortal/no-auth/misReport/home/loadSearchTrrnHome

How to Pay PF Online?

• Visit the unified portal of EPFO & Login to the unified portal of EPFO using your Electronic Challan cum Return (ECR).
• Once check the PF details displayed are correct.
• Select the ECR upload option from the Payment drop down menu.
• ECR upload window will be displayed where you need to select Wage Month, Salary Disbursal Date, Rate of contribution.
• After selecting now upload ECR text file.
• Upon uploading the ECR text file, File Validation Successful message will be displayed if the uploading process is successful and the TRRN generated will be displayed for the uploaded ECR file.
• Note down the TRRN number and hit the Verify button.
• Once the verification is completed now hit the Prepare Challan button to get ECR summary sheet.
• In the ECR summary sheet click on pay.
• Select the mode of payment online and select your Bank from the list of Banks.
• After the successful payment, Payment Transaction-id will be generated with e-Receipt.
• EPFO provides the payment confirmation against the TRRN number.
• That you can check the TRRN status by using the first process discussed in the article.

EPF payment online – https://unifiedportal-emp.epfindia.gov.in/epfo/

Online Provident Fund Withdrawal Could Be Done By August

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Reports are rife that the Employee’s Provident Fund Organisation may introduce a facility for making online withdrawals. This is expected to be in place by August. By enabling online withdrawals the retirement fund scheme is likely to enjoy savings generated from eliminating paperwork. Members of the retirement fund organisation will also benefit from a more convenient service. The online facility would see the withdrawal times cut down to just a couple of hours.

A senior official of the Employee’s Provident Fund Organisation disclosed that the digitization of the body’s records and processes, which run on an operating system from Oracle, has been completed. The senior official also disclosed that they had high hopes the online withdrawal facility of provident funds would go live before August 2016.

PF Claim Status Check       PF EDLI Benefits

PF Claim Form                      PF Benefits                          PF Withdrawal Online Process

PF Rules                                 PF Interest Calculator       PF Withdrawal Rules

The senior official went on to disclose that the retirement body will in the near future purchase blade servers that will be used to set up data centers. The number of data centers are envisaged to be three. They will be located at Dwarka in Delhi, Secunderabad and Gurgaon. All the one hundred and twenty three EPFO offices will be connected to the 3 data centers.

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EPF e Passbook       EPF Balance Check Online     EPF Contribution Rules

EPF Office Addresses                    EPF Withdrawal for Repaying Home Loan

By May of this year the procedure of buying servers is expected to have been completed. Tests are expected to begin in the month of June in order to evaluate how the system would respond once it goes live. The intensive trials and tests would take up two months making it possible to plan for a launch in August.

The senior EPFO official confided that the moment the online withdrawal facility becomes operational, members of the fund would be able to make an online application to conduct a withdrawal. Following the authentication and authorization of a successful application, the funds would then be transmitted to the respective accounts at the respective banks.

Currently subscribers of the Employee’s Provident Fund Organisation have to make a manual application in order to withdraw from the retirement fund.

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In order to enjoy this facility of online PF withdrawals subscribers would be required to fulfill some requirements. One of these requirements is activating their Universal Account Numbers.

EPFO Portal Login                           EPFO Online Transfer

UAN Balance Check by SMS         UAN Registration        Apply PRAN Card Online

The Universal Account Number, which allows number portability between various provident funds was launched by Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India on the 1^st October 2014. The UAN consists of 12 digits and is meant to give a subscriber one non-changing identity regardless the establishment they are working for or the employee provident fund they are contributing to. Throughout an employee’s life, the number will remain the same no matter how many times the employee changes jobs. The EPFO has given out more than sixty million Universal Account Numbers. Activations have been recorded in close to twenty five million of those UANs.

The PAN(Permanent Account Number), the Aadhaar number and bank account details would also be required as would other information that fulfils Know Your Client obligations.

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Currently the subscriber base of the Employee Provident Fund organisation has reached over ten million. The retirement fund has over five lakh crore of assets that it is currently managing.

EPFO UP                                  EPFO MP                               EPFO AP            

EPFO Delhi                             EPFO Maharashtra            EPFO Bihar

EPFO Tamil Nadu                 EPFO  Karnataka                EPFO Telangana

EPFO Kerala                           EPFO Odisha                        EPFO West Bengal

EPFO Chhattisgarh              EPFO Jharkhand                 EPFO Rajasthan

EPFO Haryana                      EPFO Punjab                        EPFO Jammu & Kashmir

EPFO Assam                          EPFO Chandigarh               EPFO Puducherry

EPFO Mizoram                     EPFO Tripura                       EPFO Arunachal Pradesh

EPFO Meghalaya                 EPFO Sikkim                         EPFO Himachal Pradesh

EPFO Manipur                     EPFO Gujarat                        EPFO Uttarakhand

EPFO Nagaland                   EPFO Goa