New Delhi: Employees seeking to withdraw savings from the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) can now do so without permission from employers as long as their accounts are seeded with Aadhar numbers.
“It is now possible for subscribers, who have seeded with Aadhar number and bank account details (sic), to submit claim forms directly to EPFO without the attestation of employers,” the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) said in an office order on Tuesday.
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“This is the power of Aadhar. We have mandated the seeding of Aadhar in all PF accounts. People are asking why - the answer is this decision. Withdraw your PF money without the attestation of the employer,” said central PF commissioner V.P. Joy.
“In an Aadhar-enabled word, you don’t need many paper work. If Income tax department can verify a tax payer via Aadhar, why can not we verify few details through it,” the commissioner said.
Joy said six different withdrawal forms have been consolidated into two which are just one page each. The composite claim form (Aadhar) will allow withdrawal without employers’ permission and composite claim form (non-Aadhar) will require the employer’s permission.
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Besides, the fund manager has allowed subscribers to submit self-certification instead of various certifications on why they are seeking part withdrawal. At present, subscribers are required to provide certificates from concerned authorities while withdrawing part of their EPF savings for purposes such as construction of a house, higher education and marriage of children or if a company shuts down.
In its official order, EPFO said it has now embarked on the next phase of e-governance reform to improve user interface with the retirement fund body.
EPFO, which manages a retirement corpus of more than Rs. 8.5 trillion, is mandatorily seeding all 81 million provident fund (PF) accounts with Aadhaar numbers by 31 March. Its initial target was to complete the task by 31 December.
