In a bid to ease the burden of subscribers, the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has simplified the process of correcting any member’s personal details on the EPF portal, and eased the way through which PF accounts are transferred during change of job.
Sources said EPF members with fully compliant e-KYC accounts can file their online transfer claims now with Aadhaar-OTP directly with EPFO without any need for intervention from the employer.
Earlier, any online request for transfer of PF account in case of any change of job had to be verified by the employer before submitting to EPFO. The verification by the employer took about two weeks, which delayed the process.
During the past nine months, almost 2 million claims remained pending with employers for more than 15 days, said the sources. “If the number of claims filed (13 million) during FY25 is considered, more than 94% claims will instantly reach EPFO,” an official said.
The turnaround time of transfer claim processing will be considerably reduced since it does not require approval by the employer.
Moreover, if any member has already filed his transfer claim which is pending with the employer, the member can delete the already filed request and submit a fresh claim directly with EPFO, said sources. The internal processes of EPFO are also being simplified for transfer claim processing within this month, which will further smoothen this process, they said.
Additionally, the EPFO has eased the process of ‘joint declaration’ on the portal by allowing employee to self-correct most common errors in his personal details, like name, date of birth, gender, nationality, etc, without any verification by employer or approval by EPFO, if the universal account number (UAN) was issued after October 1, 2017 (when Aadhaar matching was made mandatory). No supporting document is required in such cases, said the sources.
If the UAN was issued prior to October 1, 2017, any correction can be made by the employer without the EPFO approval, and the requirement of supporting documents has also been simplified for such cases, they said. In cases, where UAN is not linked with Aadhaar, any correction would have to be submitted physically to the employer, and after verification forwarded to EPFO for approval. At present, around 27% of the grievances filed by the members relate to member profile/KYC issues which would significantly reduce now, said the sources.