EPFO simplifies provident fund transfer process, benefits 12.5 million members

The Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has simplified the process of transferring provident fund accounts on job change by removing the requirement of approval from an employer in the majority of the cases. The move is aimed at enhancing the ease of living and is expected to benefit more than 12.5 million EPFO members, the labour and employment ministry said on Friday.

As per the ministry's statement, the revamped functionality also provides the bifurcation of taxable and non-taxable components of PF accumulations to facilitate accurate calculation of tax deducted at source (TDS) on taxable PF interest.

The move is expected to facilitate the transfer of around ₹ 90,000 crore every year henceforth as the entire transfer process will be speeded up, the ministry said.


Besides, a facility for the bulk generation of Universal Account Number (UAN) based on member ID and other available member information has been introduced to ensure prompt crediting of funds to members' accounts. "To that effect, a software functionality has been deployed and made available to field offices (FO) through the FO interface, enabling bulk generation of UANs in such cases and accounting for past accumulations without the requirement of Aadhaar in the EPFO application," the ministry said. However, as a measure of risk mitigation to protect the PF accumulations, all such UANs will be kept in a frozen state and subsequently made operational only after the seeding of Aadhaar, it said.- Our Bureau