It is not mandatory to comply with EPF Act 1952 till the time the employee strength (including the contract labourers engaged on any outsourced work at your premises) does not touch twenty or more. However if the employees and employer mutually agree and approach the Chief PF Commissioner for voluntary coverage under the Act, the CPFC may by notification in official gazette extend the provisions of the Act. The relevant provisions are quoted below:
(3) Subject to the provisions contained in section 16, it applies -
(a) to every establishment which is a factory engaged in any industry specified in Schedule I and in which twenty or more persons are employed and (b) to any other establishment employing twenty or more persons or class of such establishments which the Central Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, specify, in this behalf:
Provided that the Central Government may, after giving not less than two months’ notice of its intention so to do, by notification in the Official Gazette, apply the provisions of this Act to any establishment employing such number of persons less than twenty as may be specified in the notification.
(4) Notwithstanding anything contained in sub-section 3 of this section or-subsection 1 of section16, where it appears to the Central Provident Fund Commissioner, whether on an application made to him in this behalf or otherwise, that the employer and the majority of employees in relation to any establishment have agreed that the provisions of this Act should be made applicable to the establishment, he may, by notification in the Official Gazette, apply the provisions of this Act to that establishment on and from the date of such agreement or from any subsequent date specified in such agreement.