1. Employees' Provident Fund Organisation

The Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (abbreviated to EPFO), is an organization tasked to assist the Central Board of Trustees, a statutory body formed by the Employees' Provident Fund and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952 and is under the administrative control of the Ministry of Labour and Employment, Government of India.

EPFO assists the Central Board in administering a compulsory contributory Provident Fund Scheme, a Pension Scheme and an Insurance Scheme for the workforce engaged in the organized sector in India. It is also the nodal agency for implementing Bilateral Social Security Agreements with other countries on a reciprocal basis. The schemes cover Indian workers as well as International workers (for countries with which bilateral agreements have been signed.

References

The question of providing for the future of industrial workers after their retirement or for their dependents, in the event of their premature death, engaged the attention of the Central Government for a long time. The first Provident Fund Act passed in 1925 for regulating the provident funds of some private concerns was limited in scope. In 1929 the Royal Commission on Labour stressed the need for formulating schemes for instituting provident funds for industrial workers.

The success of this Scheme led to the demand for its expansion to other industries.. The Employees' Provident Funds Scheme, 1952 framed under section 5 of the Act was brought into force by stages and was enforced in its entirety by 1 November 1952.

The Employees' Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952 came into effect on 4 March 1952. Six industries namely Cigarettes, Electrical, mechanical or general engineering products, Iron and Steel, Paper and Textiles (made wholly or in part of cotton, wool or jute or silk, whether natural or artificial) came under implementation of the Act 1 November

Retirement fund body EPFO on 21 February 2018 lowered the rate of interest on employees provident fund to 8.55% for 2017-18, [7] from 8.65% [8] in the previous fiscal. The orders of the Department can be appealed to Employees' Provident Fund Appellate Tribunal [9] at New Delhi or at Bangalore if the employer is situated in states of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Goa and Union Territories of Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Puducherry.

Administratively, the organization is divided into zones which are headed by an Additional Central Provident Fund Commissioner. At present, there are 10 Zones across the country. Further below, the states have either one or more than one Regional Offices headed by Regional Provident Fund Commissioners (RPFC) (Grade I) which are again sub- divided into Sub-Regions headed by Regional Provident Fund Commissioners (Grade II).

2. Appeals Structure

Assist them are Assistant Provident Fund Commissioners looking after the enforcement of the Act and Schemes. Many districts in the country have district offices where an assistant provident fund commissioner is stationed for implementation of the scheme and attend to grievances.

The total manpower of the EPFO is at present more than 20000 including all levels. The Commissioner cadre numbering 815 are recruited directly, competitively, through the Union Public Service Commission of India as well as through promotion from lower ranks. Subordinate Officers (Enforcement Officers/Accounts Officers) are also recruited directly in addition to promotion from the staff cadre of social security assistants.

 The UAN is a 12-digit number allotted to employee who is contributing to EPF will be generated for each of the PF member by EPFO. For example, 111222333444. The UAN will act as an umbrella for the multiple Member Ids allotted to an individual by different establishments and also remains same through the lifetime of an employee. It does not change with the change in jobs. The idea is to link multiple Member Identification Numbers (Member Id) allotted to a single member under single Universal Account Number. This will help the member to view details of all the Member Identification Numbers (Member Id) linked to it. The Major benefit of UAN or Universal Account Number will include easy tagging of multiple Employee's Provident Fund Member Id under a single number, thus reducing the confusion.

The UAN will help in easy transfer and withdrawals of claims. Along with this services like Online Pass-Book, SMS Services on each deposit of contribution and Online KYC Update can be provided on the basis of UAN number. Before that, you need to activate UAN [11] from EPFO portal.

There are new UAN portal start to check your EPF balance and nowadays all the details like how to check UAN status, [12] download UAN EPF passbook,[13] check EPF balance,[14] provident fund claim and many more facility provided by new UAN portal. EPFO has now started to provide the refund of Administrative charges if all the KYC details are updated for all employees. [15] This incentive program is announced for the Year 2016-2017.

3. Critical Aspects

In March 2018, Union Cabinet claimed that almost 84 million EPFO subscribers did not have birth dates and that father's name was missing in 110 million accounts. Critics asserted that such excuses were turning common to cancel pension and other annuity schemes without any legal backlash, riot or even public debate. The underlying cause is believed to be unfunded or underfunded risk through longevity swap transactions.