Parul Chhaparia
New Delhi, Dec 9
The Employees? Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has found it has 48.5 million subscribers whose accounts do not square up. The numbers are more than the total number of subscribers ? 47.2 million, according to its last annual account ? to India?s largest government-funded pension company.
Despite this accounting scandal, the EPFO board is slated to meet on December 23 to finalise its accounts and firm up an interest rate on its deposits for this fiscal year. They will not wait for the reconciliation, which could take till the end of this year.
Workers in all private sector companies that employ more than 20 people have to compulsorily put away 12% of their monthly salary as contribution to the EPFO-run provident fund. The employers make a matching contribution and the entire sum is parked in central and state government securities by the organisation every year.
The cross-check was done by the Finance and Investment Committee of the EPFO, which reports to the Central Board of Trustees of the organisation, in a background paper.
The check was at the prompting of the finance ministry. The ministry had noticed that accounts of the contributors to the EPFO have not been reconciled for quite a few years. As a result, it was discovered that the total number of accounts in the organisation made up of private sector employees? contribution had risen to 158.3 million as on April 1, including dormant accounts. Of these, the EPFO has been able to clear only 109.7 million accounts till November 22, leaving a backlog of 48.5 million accounts.
Basically, the organisation does not know how much each of these subscribers have paid into their accounts over the years.
