EPFO simplifies PF transfer process; move to benefit over 12.5 million members

The Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation 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 over 12.5 million EPFO members.

Till now, the transfer of provident fund (PF) accumulations involved two Employees' Provident Fund (EPF) offices, the source office, from which the PF amount was transferred, and the destination office, where the amount is finally credited, the ministry of labour and employment said on Friday.

“Now, with an aim to further simplify the process, EPFO has removed the requirement of approval of all transfer claims at the destination office by launching a revamped Form 13 software functionality,” it said.

As per the statement, this 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 benefit over 12.5 million members facilitating the transfer of around Rs 90,000 crore every year, henceforth as the entire transfer process shall be speeded up, the ministry said.

Also, a facility for the bulk generation of UANs 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,” it said.

However, as a measure of risk mitigation to protect the PF accumulations, all such UANs would be kept in a frozen state and subsequently made operational only after the seeding of Aadhaar, it added.

The government feels all these measures are expected to significantly improve services for members and reduce long-standing grievances, including further streamlining of validations for auto settlement of eligible claims.