Employees Provident Fund Organisation 
(Ministry of Labour & Employment, Govt of India)
Head Office
Bhavishya Nidhi Bhavan, 14-Bhikaji Cama Place, New Delhi – 110066
www.epfindia.gov.in www.epfindia.nic.in
Telephone: 011- 26172685 Fax: 01 l-26173022 Email: rc.fa@epfindia.gov.in

No. Manual/2(1)2016/Claim Form/Part-II/ 3004

Date : 08-May-2017

To

All ACCs (HQ)/ACCs (Zones) &
All RPFCs-lncharge of
Regional Offices.

Sub: Gazette Notification on amendments in EPF, EPS and EDU Schemes Implementation of Draft Benefit Transfer through electronic mode. 

Ref: Mol&E notification No. G.S.R.436(E), G.S.R.437(E) & G.S.R.438(E) dated 4th May, 2017.

Sir/Madam,

Please find enclosed copies of the above said notifications issued by the Ministry of Labour & Employment on amendments in paragraph 72(5)(e) of Employees’ Provident Fund Scheme, 195″”1 paragraph 33 of Employees’ Pension Scheme, 1995 and paragraph 24(3) of Employees’ Deposit Linked Insurance Scheme, 1976.

2. The notifications shall come into effect from the date of its publication in the Official Gazette. As per the amendments, all the payments may be made to the beneficiaries through electronic or digital fund transfer system only. 

Yours faithfully.
sd
(Udita Chowdhary) 
Addi. Central P.F Commissioner (F&A)

Encl: As above

Copy to:
1). ACC(HQ)-IS for necessary modification in the application software accordingly.
2) DD (OL) for Hindi version
3) RPFC (NDC) for web upload.

sd
(Udita Chowdhary) 
Addi. Central P.F Commissioner (F&A)

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Payment of Statutory Contributions Henceforth only through Internet Banking

The Prime Minister of India during the PRAGATI review meeting held on 26th October desired that claims related to death cases be prioritized and expedited and retirement claims may be settled on the day of retirement. In accordance, the processes have been reviewed and instructions have been issued to field offices to settle death claims within a period of 07 days from the date of receipt of proposal and retirement claims on the day of retirement. The officials in the facilitation centre of field offices have been instructed to scrutinize the claims and guide the claimant regarding submission of required documents in appropriate shape. An official has been posted in the facilitation centers of EPFO this category of claims.

Employers are now increasingly using internet banking to deposit statutory EPF dues since EPFO made it mandatory to use internet banking as the mode of receipt of EPF dues. 96.03% contributions in October 2016 were received online.

In an important judgment delivered by the High Court of Madras in the matter of writ petition filed by Builders Association of India, Madurai, the High Court dismissed the petition praying non enforcement of EPF & MP Act, 1952 every employee employed in or in connection with the work or that factory or establishment, other than an excluded employee, who has not become a member already shall also be entitled and required to become a member of the Fund from the date of joining the factory or establishment.

To expand the reach of convenience offered to EPF members, EPFO has joined the network of Common Services Centers (CSC). A Memorandum of understanding (MoU) has been signed between EPFO and CSC e-Governance Services India Limited (CSC SPV) on 25th October 2016. The MoU is initially for a period of five years. Every year on 14st November, pensioners were required to submit their life certificates. From this year onward, pensioners can submit digital life certificates via Jeevan Pramaan Patra programme through a large number of points of Presence (PoP) of CSC network in addition to those available at EPFO offices. The pensioners living in remote areas can avoid cost and inconvenience of travelling down to the EPF offices or their banks for filing paper based life certificate through this arrangement.

Source : PIB

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After 7th Pay Commission salary hikes, move on to raise minimum wage ceiling under EPF

The minimum wage ceiling under the Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) could soon be raised to Rs 25,000 from the existing Rs 15,000.

The minimum wage ceiling under the Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) could soon be raised to Rs 25,000 from the existing Rs 15,000. A proposal to to enhance the limit is likely to be sent by the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) to the government. A decision to propose the change has been taken at a recent meeting of Sub-committee of the Central Board of Trustees, EPFO, on contract workers held on November 7. Central Board of Trustees (CBT) is the highest decision-making body of the EPFO.

A hike in the wage limit as proposed would mean all employees drawing basic salary Rs 25,000 would have to compulsorily contribute to the provident fund. However, those drawing above that limit will have the option to become member of the provident fund, and can opt out if they want to.

The move comes in wake of changes in the wage structure in accordance with the proposal of the 7th Pay Commission. Trade union representatives at the CBT sub-committee meeting pointed out that the minimum wage of Central government employees after implementation of the Pay Commission report has been hiked to Rs 18,000. and hence the EPFO’s wage ceiling of Rs 15,000 needs to be altered. They pointed out that there could be further increase in minimum wages from the Rs 18,000 is likely with the trade unions demanding a minimum wage of at least Rs 21,000 to Rs 22000.

In fact, the Employees’ Deposit Linked Insurance Scheme (EDLI) is directly linked to the minimum wage ceiling. At present, If an employee is earning up to Rs 15,000 he or she can avail of benefits under the Employees Deposit Linked Insurance Scheme (EDLI). The scheme provides life insurance of up to Rs 6 lakhs.

Source : http://www.financialexpress.com/Similar Posts:

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Though a majority of organised workers are covered under the Employees’ Pension Scheme (EPS) 1995, there is still very low transparency level. Many readers might not have even heard about it because EPS is not a separate scheme. It is just an add-on to the Employee Provident Fund (EPF) scheme and all EPF members also automatically become EPS members.

The EPS is plagued with several problems. First, the pension provided by it is very low (i.e. minimum pension under EPS scheme now is only Rs 1,000 per month). As per the current structure, pension is fixed based on the formula given below: Average salary for the last 5 years x No of years completed in service 70 All EPF members are eligible for pension after 10 years of contribution to EPS. The pension from EPS is low because the contribution is also low. At present, employees don’t contribute towards EPS. The employer contributes 8.33% of salary ( i .e. basic + Dearness Allowance) towards EPS, the definition of salary here is restricted to Rs 15,000 for employees whose salary (i.e. basic + DA) is above this limit.So for them, the EPS contribution will be restricted to Rs 1,250 per month or Rs 15,000 per annum.

The Rs 15,000 restriction comes at the time of pension calculation as well. If your salary (basic + DA) is above that, pension will be computed only on Rs 15,000. So the maximum pension one can get now (assuming 35 year service) is Rs 7,500.There are reports about EPFO (Employees Provident Fund Organisation) allowing members to contribute more voluntarily to the EPS for getting enhanced benefits after retirement. However, EPS subscribers will be ready to increase their contribution only if the pension is based on the contribution made by the employee throughout the period and not on the number of years last drawn salary . Second, this small pension from EPS (i.e. placed now between Rs 1,000 and Rs 7,500), is not inflation linked like pension for government employees, who joined service before 2004. Since the cost of living increases due to inflation, this “small pension“ now will become “smaller“ in later years.

Third, while employees are complaining about low pension from EPS, the scheme is battling huge deficit. This is because there is no direct linkage between the contribution made by employees and the pension received by them. As of now, EPS is working on the base of new contribution -i.e. contribution from new employees are used to pay the pension for retired ones.Though this may be sustainable for some time because of the demographic dividend in India (i.e. large number of youngsters getting into work force compared to few retired ones), this will not be sustainable in long term. This is because of the expected demographic profile change and the change in employment structure (i.e. more and more companies are hiring people on contract, so they may be outside the EPS ambit). Government doesn’t reveal actuarial valuation of pension liabilities from EPS on regular basis, so only estimates are available on its deficit figures -assumed to be more than Rs 50,000 crore.In addition to cleaning up this mess, government should also release this deficit on regular basis, at least on annual basis, for the sake of transparency .

Source : ET

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Government Decides to withdraw the 10th February 2016 Notification with Immediate Effect

Press Information Bureau
Government of India
Ministry of Labour & Employment

21-April-2016 17:51 IST

Government Decides to withdraw the 10th February 2016 Notification with Immediate Effect

Government had issued a notification dated 10th February 2016 regarding rules for withdrawal from EPF Funds by the members. Under the revised rules, the employee was permitted to withdraw the employees’ share from the fund (which is 12% of the wages). However, it was prescribed that the employers’ share of contribution towards the Provident Fund (which is 3.67% of wage) would be allowed to be withdrawn only at the age of retirement (58 years). The objective was to provide a minimum social security to the workers at the time of retirement. It was noticed that over 80% of the claims settled by EPFO belonged to pre-mature withdrawal of funds, treating the EPF accounts as savings accounts, and not a Social Security instrument.

In order to address the issues the amendment stated above was carried out with the consent of Trade Unions and with the intention of promoting a decent accumulation of provident fund for the members at the end of their working lifetimes.

However, considering the representations received from various quarters and after consultations with the various stakeholders, Minister of State (IC) Labour and Employment, Sh Bandaru Dattatreya announced that the government has decided to withdraw the said 10th February 2016 Notification with immediate effect.

Accordingly, the workers are now allowed to withdraw the entire amount from the provident fund as per existing provisions of the EPF Scheme 1952 including the employers’ share of 3.67%.

Source: PIB News

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