Employees Alert! New Rule of PF to Change from 1st September

Starting from the month of September, if your UAN (Universal Account Number) & Aadhar card is not linked then your employer will not be able to credit the money to your Provident Fund (PF) Account. To implement this new rule, the Employees Provident Fund Organization (EPFO) has recently revised Section 142 of the Code of Social Security 2020. 

If you wish to enjoy the benefits of your retirement fund, then it is mandatory for you to link your Aadhar Card with your PF (Provident Fund) Account. Talking about the new rules & what it entails, Vaibhav Bhardwaj, Partner IndusLaw, told a leading news site that the “ The Ministry of Labor & Employment, Government of India has brought Section 142 of the Code on Social Security 2020 into effect from 3^rd May 2021.

Whereby an employee or any other beneficiary in order to obtain any of the benefit under the Social Security Code is required to establish his or her identity ( or the identity of his or her family members or dependents, as the case may be ) through the Aadhar card number.  

In addition to the monthly EPF contributions from the employers, if your PF account is not linked to your Aadhar number then the other EPFO contributions will be impacted and this will come into effect from 1^st September 2021.

Stressing on the importance of linking the Aadhar number & UAN, Vaibhav Bhardwaj said that the “EPFO has given employers, the responsibility to make the employees account Aadhar verified. In case if the employee’s EPF account is not Aadhar verified, then it may mean that the employer’s contribution shall not be credited into the account of employees. 

Saraswati Kasturirangan, a Partner at Deloitte Indian said that the “Linking of the Aadhar number along with the UAN is mandatory. Effective from the 1^st September 2021, the employers will not be able to remit the PF for cases where such linking is not done. The Employers need to use this extended time to make sure that the suitable communication is sent to the employers advising them about the consequences of not linking & provide the guidance on how the linking is done.