NEW DELHI: The number of provident fund accounts closed between April-December of the current financial year has increased by 6.5% to 71 lakh, when the coronavirus-induced lockdown was at its peak and job losses were reported. The number of accounts closed during the first nine months of 2019-2020 added up to 66.7 lakh. An EPF account is closed for a variety of reasons including retirement, job loss or a change in employment. There are over 5 crore active EPF accounts. Withdrawals, however, rose by over 33% to Rs 73,498 crore during the nine months of the current financial year compared with Rs 55,125 crore in the corresponding period last year, Labour and employment minister Santosh Gangwar said in Lok Sabha on Monday, while responding to a question by Congress’ MP Abdul Khaleque.
With the coronavirus pandemic throwing up unprecedented challenges, businesses facing closure and unemployment levels rising, partial withdrawals from the EPFO also surged in 2020. While the number of partial withdrawals in 2019 were pegged at 54.4 lakh, the numbers more than doubled to 1.3 crore partial withdrawals in 2020. The government had opened a special window allowing Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) subscribers to dip into their retirement savings to tide over the corona crisis. In fact, individuals were allowed to withdraw up to 75% of their kitty, a facility which has been availed by many who lost their jobs.
Once an individual starts his career by working in any of the Provident Fund (PF) registered organizations he/she gets registered for PF purpose and then both the employee and employer contribute that fund. However, if you have switched your company and want to transfer your provident fund from your previous company to a new account opened by the current employer, you can do so sitting at home. The online facility to transfer PF is provided by the Employees Provident Fund Organization (EPFO).
Since the arrival of the Universal Account Number (UAN), all the accounts of the employee remain in one place, even if the money is held in different accounts. Therefore, it is important that the employee share his/her UAN with the new company first and then can later transfer the money from the old account to the new account. To do this process online, one can follow the below mentioned easy steps:
Step 2: As you login, you will have to click on ‘One Member – One EPF Account (Transfer Request)’ which will be available under Online Services.
Step 3: You will then have to verify personal information and PF account for present employment.
Step 4: You will have to click on ‘Get details’ below to know the details regarding the PF account of previous employment.
Step 5: For attesting the claim form based on the availability of authorized signatory holding DSC, you will get options to choose either your previous employer or current employer. You can select any one of the employers and provide member id/UAN.
Step 6: You will next have to click on the ‘Get OTP’ option to receive OTP to UAN registered mobile number and then enter the OTP and click on the submit button.
After completing the above-mentioned process, the employer will digitally approve your EPF transfer request by accessing the employer interface of the unified portal. You will also have to fill up Form 13 and download the transfer claim which will be in pdf format and submit the physical signed copy of the online PF transfer claim form to the selected employer.
Things to note before transferring the PF online1. The employee should have activated his UAN in the UAN portal and the mobile number used for activation should also be active.
2. The bank account and bank IFSC code of the employee should be seeded against the UAN.
3. The employer should have approved the e-KYC.
4. The authorized signatories in EPFO should have been digitally registered by the previous/current employer.
5. PF account number of the previous and current employment of an employee should be entered in the EPFO database.