Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation to issue universal a/c nos

New Delhi: Retirement fund body EPFO has asked its field staff to clean up records as it plans to issue universal (permanent) account numbers soon to its over 5 crore subscribers. The account number will help organised sector workers and frequent job changers, particularly in the construction sector. It will help them to avoid filing claims for transfer of PF accounts on change of job. “EPFO is going to soon roll out universal account numbers for its members,” state the minutes of the recent meeting of high ups of the the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) chaired by its central provident commissioner K K Jalan.
The number will help reduce the workload of the EPFO to a great extent. Every year, EPFO receives over 12 lakh claims for transfer of provident fund account on changing jobs by its subscribers. A subscriber with permanent account number, would not be issued new PF account number on joining new employer.
 Jalan said at the meeting that cleaning up the records was very critical to the next phase of reforms in EPFO. That includes rolling out universal account number for EPFO subscribers. According to the instru-ctions given to field officers, the cleaning up of records would include, having registered all firms on ECR portal, updation of records of all employers and cleaning negative balances in its accounts.