Rejoined Employee's PF Claim Dilemma: How to Handle Contributions to the Same UAN?

If an employee leaves the service and exits from the PF portal but rejoins after some months and accidentally pays contributions to the same UAN without creating a second PF ID, how can he claim his PF amount from the portal? Your valuable advice on this matter would be greatly appreciated.

Gross Payroll Mistake

Lakkaraju, it's a gross payroll mistake. Why were the employee's PF accumulations posted to his previous member ID?

It is a very common fact that a new or separate member ID is created every time a member starts tenure with an organization.

Practical Advice

Please send a payroll correction form to your payroll department to correct the entries. As far as I know, the postings can be corrected in the next due month by passing corrected amounts. Please create a new member ID and link it to the UAN.

Otherwise, this will also cause an inconvenience to the employee as he or she will not be able to claim any PF transfers in the future. Please communicate to the employee about this error and assure him or her of the corrections in a timely manner.

Options for Handling PF ID and UAN After Employment Gap

In this case, there may be several options. If the employee left the organization and the employer did not show him the exit in the PF portal, then he may continue with the old ID and obviously with the same UAN number, provided the employee has not joined any other organization during his gap months and opened a new ID in that organization.

If the employer marked him exit in the PF portal or if he joined another organization during the gap months along with a new PF ID, then a new ID will be required to generate against the constant UAN number.

S K Bandyopadhyay (WB, Howrah)
CEO-USD HR Solutions