EPF vs. ESI Staff Numbers: What Are Our Liabilities for Past Employees?

EPF and ESI Staff Discrepancy

In our school, there were 82 staff under EPF and 91 under ESI for the past two years. Out of the 9 staff left out from EPF, 5 are bus crew who are aged above 60 years and are receiving EPS pension for previous employment, while 4 who were aged 40 to 50 refused to join EPF. These 4 persons left on 31-03-2016 after putting in 18 months of service. The EPF organization has sent a letter recently asking for an explanation regarding the difference in EPF and ESI employees from 01-06-2015 to 31-03-2016. I presume that we are at fault for not enrolling the 4 in EPF and justified in the case of the 5 who are EPS pensioners. Since the 4 have left on 31-03-2016, what is our liability to EPF?

For the four people, you are liable to pay both the employee and employer contributions. You need to submit the salary register for all the months between 01-06-2015 and 31-03-2016, along with the ECR for these periods. You need to tally both. The difference is what you are liable to pay. Please don't try to negotiate on this with the EPF department. I suggest not trying with any consultant.

You need to generate the challan for this period and make the payment. The EPF department will guide you through this. Then, you will receive a separate notice for fines and damages for this period.

Thank you, Mr. Saravanan, for your kind reply. Out of these four, one has died in May 2016, and I don't know about the particulars of the other three. Without any nomination form obtainable from them and without the UAN number, how can the payment be made, and in whose account? Please enlighten me.

EPFO Liability and Compliance

As per EPFO's point of view, we can't escape from the liability by giving these reasons. They need the payment, that's all. The logic is, it should not be our concern whether the employee withdraws the amount or not.

They will ask us to generate a new PF Number and generate the challan for those employees. The enforcement officer will assist you with UAN generation, activation, and KYC exemption. Internally, they will do this. Have a good relationship with the Enforcement Officer. Now, it is Diwali time. Hope you understand.

Regards

To access the ESIC portal, view the RC of the respective periods (where you can obtain the number of days and salary amount for each employee over a six-month block), and retrieve the IP number. Afterward, log out from ESIC and return to the main page. Log in with the IP login, and it will display all the necessary details required for registering an employee with EPFO, such as name, father/spouse name, date of birth, and sex. Additionally, you can access nominee details in the ESIC portal using the IP login.