How Can I Verify PF and ESI Payments for My Company's Contract Workers?

I have three contractors. The company is registered, and all contractors have valid licenses. All three contractors are supplying manpower to many companies. I want to check whether the contractors remit the PF and ESI contributions paid by the company in full. When I insist on proof of full remittance, they produce documents that contain remittances to their laborers in all companies. It takes a lot of time to segregate and find the details pertaining to my company. Is there any way to request the ESI and PF authorities to provide contribution remittance statements specifically for the contract labor of my company only?

Dear Anonymous,

In PF, you can create ECR in multiples contractor-wise; however, in ESI, this facility is not available. We should ask the Corporation to provide such a kind of facility. Until such time as you have no such facility, you can ask your contractors to provide the ESI contribution history sheet with the employees who worked for you highlighted. You can conduct random checks to ensure that the contractors are compliant with the regulations.

Please also keep in mind that you are not responsible for defaults by independent contractors who have social security codes allocated to them by the respective authorities (Breaks India v EPFO, HC Madras). However, it may not be advisable to neglect auditing the compliance documents of the contractors.

Kind regards

Dear Mr. Korgaonkar, Thank you for your detailed reply. It is very useful.

Regards,
R. Viswanathan

Contractor Document Segregation Challenge

Dear Mr. Govindakumar, I did not say that the contractors are not producing documents. They produce documents, but they contain details of contract laborers employed by them in various companies. I find it very difficult to segregate the contract laborers supplied by them to my company. If there is a way for easy segregation, I can check whether the contractor has remitted the PF and ESI paid by the company in full.

Thank you for your reply.

Regards,
R. Viswanathan

Dear Mr. Visu, please ask all the contractors to mention the PF/ESI numbers of individual workers in the wages registers, attach the xerox copy of the wages registers, and send ECR copies (PF & ESI - full soft copy) every month along with their bills. You can check the wages/PF and ESI contribution details of the workers in the ECR by searching with their PF/ESI numbers every month. If you check the remittance details of PF/ESI for a few months in the beginning and do random checks afterward, you could control the payment details of the contractors.

Regards, N. Nataraajhan, Sakthi Management Services [Phone Number Removed For Privacy Reasons]; [Email Removed For Privacy Reasons]