UID TO REPLACE EPF ACCOUNT NUMBER
EPF ONLINE BALANCE BY 31.03.2011
The Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) plans to replace the provident fund (PF) account number with a unique identification (UID) number, a move that would enable speedy transfer of subscribers’ funds in case of a job change and allow them to track their accounts online. At present, if a subscriber changes his job, it takes months to transfer PF money from one account to another, as a transfer of records from one office to the other is required. Under these circumstances, a large number of subscribers often withdraw the entire money in their account and go for a fresh account with the new employer. The replacement of PF account number with the UID number will be done after inter-connecting all regional and sub-offices of EPFO by March 2012.
“We are in the process of digitizing and inter-connecting all our offices. We plan to use UID as the subscribers account number after that,” Labour Secretary P C Chaturvedi said. In the first phase, EPFO has set a target of digitalizing the entire data in its regional and sub-offices by March this year. In the second phase, all offices would be inter-connected.
The replacement of PF account number with the UID number will be done after inter-connecting all regional and sub offices of the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) by March 2012. Digitalization and use of UID as PF A/c number would also facilitate the subscriber to apply for transfer and withdrawal online.
In a pilot study conducted at EPFO’s Karnal office, it was found that over 30.2 per cent of subscribers withdraw their PF within a year of joining service while 54.3 per cent do so by the end of the second year.
EPFO having a subscribers’ base of about 4.7 crore, processes over 60 lakh claims every year. It manages about Rs three lakh crore of funds and receives an incremental deposit of over Rs 25,000 crore every year.
Reaction from public
This is a good move, but lot of unexpected things are happening while issuing UID cards, for example in Mysore,Karnataka they are issuing UID cards, a local TV channel had performed sting operation and they could get UID card in the name of "Nandan Nilekani" i mean with his photo attached, only thing is Nandan has to go and get his photo clicked and receive the card, and also they could get cards for two terrorist who are in bangalore jail, Nandan should look into that issue, people are blindly getting Notary from lawyers and by giving them they are getting UID cards, a proper verification method should be in place or else 1lac, 50thousand crore project would go into drains.
Raghu (Bangalore)
How can computerisation and linking of PF offices take so long? All of govt financial bodies, perhaps PF organization has proved to be most reluctant in providing online services. The govt should bring legislation to give the PF contributors the option to switch their money to NPS with immediate effect.
Bodhlal (Mumbai)
Source: SIMPLETAXINDIA.org
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