Permanent PF a/c number by 2013, Less hassle for employees while shifting jobs.
Come March 2013, salaried employees will be able to switch jobs,
without worrying about withdrawing or transferring their savings with
the Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO). As the EPFO migrates
from a decentralised to a centralised system, it intends to give
permanent account numbers to their holders.
Currently, salaried employees need to open new EPF accounts whenever
they change jobs. The old PF numbers are either closed, or the money in
it withdrawn or transferred into new accounts. It turns more complicated
when the employee moves from one state to another for a job. To put an
end to this difficulty, the EPFO intends to shift to a permanent account
number, akin to a mobile number, to make this possible.
Speaking to Business Standard, EPFO, Central Provident Fund
Commissioner, R C Mishra, said, " At present our offices are
decentralised. So, the employee has to often open a new PF account
whenever he changes job and has to transfer his savings. We are making
our operations centralised. In the proposed method, the employee will be
given a single permanent number valid irrespective of the employer or
city he moves to. He doesn’t need to open a new PF number every time he
switches his job." Mishra added that a permanent account number would
not only be of great help to employees but it would also reduce
unnecessary burden on the EPFO, resulting in huge savings.
EPFO has set a deadline of March 2013 to make its operations
centralised. Mishra added, "We are hopeful that all required
infrastructure would be in place by the end of this fiscal. We are
working on the modalities and very soon appoint a consultant to initiate
the process. Once a consultant is appointed, the EPFO will follow its
advice for business process re-engineering to redesign the workflow
within the organisation. Besides that it would also assist us in
floating tenders for appointment of vendors to undertake the project."
EPFO has about 110 million member. Of this, an estimated three crore
are active members. In many cases an employee has multiple accounts and
also a good portion of accounts are lying idle as subscribers have not
transferred their funds to their new accounts.
Currently, the organisation manages a corpus of at least Rs 4.10 lakh
crore. A senior official said that once the new system is implemented,
it will lead to a decline in the number of claims settlement procedures
also. Officials also agreed that with the implementation of permanent
account number, the cases of premature withdrawal will reduce
drastically.
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