Retirement fund body EPFO made it
mandatory for firms to provide their employees’ bank account numbers
with IFSC code of bank branch to facilitate allotment of universal PF
account number and payment to its subscribers.
The Employees’ Provident Fund
Organisation headquarters has asked its over 120 field offices to seek
the core banking account numbers with IFSC code of bank branch for
seeding the same with the portable Universal PF Account Number (UAN).
“…government issued direction ..to issue
order making submission of Bank Accounts by the members mandatory in
order to facilitate the allotment of UAN, proper implementation of the
EPF Scheme, 1952 and removal of the difficulties in the matter of
payment of accumulations in the Fund to members after they cease to be
such members,” an office order said.
EPFO’s Central Provident Fund
Commissioner K K Jalan has said that these directives shall help the
body in getting the bank account details of all the members which are
necessary for making UAN operational.
At present, EPFO has already captured
bank account details in respect of 1.80 crore employees, PAN details in
respect of 86.9 lakh employees and Aadhar number in respect of 28.2 lakh
employees.
The EPFO is in the process of making
portable Universal PF Account Number (UAN) operational for its 4.17
crore contributing subscribers by October 15.
The body had started the process of
seeding the 4.17 crore UANs with subscribers bank account numbers, PAN,
Aadhaar and other Know-your-Customers (KYC) details to improve the
delivery of its services in July this year.
As per the office order, the firms will
have to furnish the information regarding the core banking account
number with IFSC code of the bank branch in respect of existing members
by October 15.
Besides the employers shall provide the
information regarding bank account and IFSC code in respect of previous
members under their employment by October 31.
The order further stated that every
employer henceforth will provide the core banking account number with
IFSC code of the bank branch in respect of every new member on joining
the Fund.
As per the order, the subscribers of the
fund who are presently not employees of any establishment, will provide
their core banking account numbers with IFSC code of the bank branch, a
crossed cheque folio with member’s name printed thereon and their
previous PF account number themselves at any Regional or Sub-Regional
Office of the EPFO. These category of members shall be provided this
information by November 31.