EPFO's Transition to a Centralized System
Come March 2013, salaried employees will be tension-free when withdrawing or transferring their savings with the Employees' Provident Fund Organization (EPFO). As the EPFO migrates from a decentralized to a centralized system, it intends to give permanent account numbers to their holders.
Currently, salaried employees need to open new EPF accounts whenever they change jobs. Either the old PF numbers are closed, or the money in them is withdrawn or transferred into new accounts. It becomes more complicated when the employee moves from one state to another for a job.
To put an end to this difficulty, the EPFO intends to shift to a permanent account number, akin to a mobile number, to make this possible.
A permanent account number would not only be of great help to employees, but it would also reduce the unnecessary burden on the EPFO, resulting in huge savings. EPFO has set a deadline of March 2013 to make its operations centralized. EPFO has about 110 million members.
Of these, an estimated three crore are active members. In many cases, an employee has multiple accounts, and a good portion of accounts is lying idle, as subscribers have not transferred their funds to their new accounts.
Currently, the organization manages a corpus of at least Rs 4.10 lakh crore.
Once the new system is implemented, it will lead to a decline in the number of claims settlement procedures as well.
With the implementation of a permanent account number, the cases of premature withdrawal will reduce drastically.
Come March 2013, salaried employees will be tension-free when withdrawing or transferring their savings with the Employees' Provident Fund Organization (EPFO). As the EPFO migrates from a decentralized to a centralized system, it intends to give permanent account numbers to their holders.
Currently, salaried employees need to open new EPF accounts whenever they change jobs. Either the old PF numbers are closed, or the money in them is withdrawn or transferred into new accounts. It becomes more complicated when the employee moves from one state to another for a job.
To put an end to this difficulty, the EPFO intends to shift to a permanent account number, akin to a mobile number, to make this possible.
A permanent account number would not only be of great help to employees, but it would also reduce the unnecessary burden on the EPFO, resulting in huge savings. EPFO has set a deadline of March 2013 to make its operations centralized. EPFO has about 110 million members.
Of these, an estimated three crore are active members. In many cases, an employee has multiple accounts, and a good portion of accounts is lying idle, as subscribers have not transferred their funds to their new accounts.
Currently, the organization manages a corpus of at least Rs 4.10 lakh crore.
Once the new system is implemented, it will lead to a decline in the number of claims settlement procedures as well.
With the implementation of a permanent account number, the cases of premature withdrawal will reduce drastically.