EPFO taking legal action against cos for not meeting UAN norms

FARIDABAD: Retirement fund body EPFO has started taking legal action against employers who are not complying with its guidelines on the Universal Account Number (UAN) for employees, an official said today.

"Getting a UAN number for every employee has been made mandatory by the department. But many of the establishments are not serious enough to get UAN for their employees," Regional Provident Commissioner-I Faridabad Kumar Rohit said.

However, now the department has initiated legal proceedings against the employers who are not complying with the provisions of UAN, the official said.

He said that eight industries of Faridabad have already been prosecuted and are facing legal proceedings.

The department has issued notices to all establishments which are not complying with rules and would be prosecuting them soon, the official said.

During an industry meet here, the official said that UAN is also like PAN and is unique to the specific individual. After getting a UAN the person need not fill any additional form for getting his Provident Fund transferred after changing the job.

EPFO in June this year notified a draft order to make UAN compulsory for all organisations covered under the EPF & MP Act. The UAN facility was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in October last year.

The retirement fund body had issued over four crore UANs to employers across the country in July last year. These UANs were then provided to workers and the process of seeding these accounts with KYC details like PAN, Bank Account and Aadhaar started.

As many as 56.34 lakh workers had activated their portable PF account numbers till June this year. All subscribers have to activate their UAN themselves by logging into the account.