Dear Anonymous (Mr. Sudhakar),
As brought out by Mr. S K Bandyopadhyay, this is a major problem being faced by may employees. If you look onto the history & databases of each of these things you will understand the problem.
a) First came PAN. In PAN Database they DO NOT Accept initials, only full expansions are permitted. However, there is an option for PAN holder to get his name PRINTED on the card as per his choice. SO many people print the initials on the card and end up thinking that their name in PAN database is as printed on the card. REMEMBER, the PAN DATABASE has you full name.
b) Then came AADHAAR. Now, AADHAAR accepts initials, special characters etc in its DATABASE. At this point in time there was no though of linking PAN & AADHAAR.
c) Then came PAN - AADHAAR Linking. The same issues of name mismatch happened here too. But based on customer complaints and feedback, Ministry of Finance & Income Tax Dept made "work-around" to enable people to still link AADHAAR & PAN despite differences in their underlying Databases. This was a pro-active step due to pressure from customers, the dead line to link PAN & AADHAAR and SIMPLE acceptance of the FACT that fundamental differences exists in the way PAN & AADHAAR databases are created.
d) Then came UAN - AADHAAR Linking (Primary KYC for UAN). New members are inevitably enrolled as per the AADHAAR card presented by the employee. But for secondary KYC (PAN), the differences in name crops up. AND unfortunately, EPFO has not yet woken up to this massive GAP in the desired condition (UAN-AADHAAR-PAN KYCs) and practical difficulties being faced by its customers due to the aforementioned reasons.
SOLUTIONS: going forward, please ensure that in your personal lives and in case of people whom you can advice, NAMES MUST BE WRITTEN IN FULL EVERY WHERE; from school leaving certificate (when my son's school started using initials in his name in report cards etc, i fought with son's school mgmt to ensure that son's full name is mentioned in every school record), to AADHAAR, to PAN, PASSPORT, VOTER ID, RATION CARD, DRIVING LICENSE etc. This is your right, not some favour being done by govt depts / pvt organisations.
MY OPINION / SOLUTIONS ON THE UAN_AADHAAR_PAN KYC:
a) Changing PAN to match AADHAAR. This is not going to happen if AADHAAR database has initials because PAN does not accept initials.
b) Changing AADHAAR to match school leaving certificate. This can be done, but unlikely to help in UAN_AADHAAR_PAN Linking because, more often than not, school leaving certificates always have INITIALs. So, even if you correct your name in AADHAAR as per School Leaving Certificate, the problem of PAN name mismatch still persists (remember no initials in PAN database).
c) Changing NAME in AADHAAR / PAN has other co-lateral implications. Just imagine how many RE-KYCs you will have to do.... AADHAAR_PAN, BANK_AADHAAR_PAN, INSURANCE_AADHAAR, Investments_AADHAAR_PAN, name correction in PASSPORT, etc etc. So in my PERSONAL CONSIDERED OPINION, EPFO insisting on exact name matching in UAN (which was generated based on AADHAAR) with PAN (not going to match in millions of cases) is just not correct.
WAY AHEAD
I feel, EPFO should do a "work around" (just like IT Dept did in case of AADHAAR_PAN Linking). It could be one or any of the following:-
a) FIRST & FOREMOST, STOP outright rejecting the PAN KYC based on name mismatch.
b) INITIATE alternative verification if there is a NAME MISMATCH:-
(i) OTP based validation on the AADHAAR (or UAN) linked mobile.
(ii) In most cases people have successfully linked AADHAAR_PAN. EPFO has access to both. EPFO can accept the PAN KYC based on verification of AADHAAR_PAN linking status.
(iii) Give the employer the feature to approve or reject the PAN KYC even if there is a name mismatch in UAN_PAN. Once employer approves it, then EPFO can also approve it to complete the KYC requirements (just like the "BASIC DATA Correction" is being implemented now)
I have put forward these ideas to EPFO on their email id: [Login to view]
The problem is know to EPFO (i guess) and as well meaning employers we must give viable solutions to EPFO so that they can implement one of the suggestions (possibly already under consideration) to overcome the UAN_AADHAAR_PAN KYC issues.
Thanks and regards,
Arun