Now, EPFO members can change personal details, transfer EPF online without employer’s intervention

Over 7.6 crore members of retirement fund body EPFO can now change personal details like name and date of birth online without any verification by the employer or approval by EPFO with the rollout of a new facility on Saturday.

Besides, the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) members with e-KYC EPF accounts (Aadhaar seeded) can file their EPF transfer claims online with Aadhaar OTP (one time password) directly without any need for intervention of the employer.

Union Labour and Employment Minister Mansukh Mandaviya introduced the two new services on Saturday.

The minister said around 27 per cent of grievances filed by members are related to member profile/KYC issues and that would see a significant drop after the rollout of the facility.

He also stated that large employers having a huge workload of such requests will also benefit.

The minister stated that the EPFO has simplified the process of joint declaration on the EPFO portal by allowing employees to self-correct most common errors in personal details like name, date of birth, gender, nationality, father/ mother’s name, marital status, spouse name, date of joining and date of leaving, without any verification by employer or approval by EPFO.

This facility will be available for members, whose UAN (universal account number) was issued after October 1, 2017, (when Aadhaar matching was made mandatory).

No supporting document is required in such cases, the minister said.

If the UAN was issued prior to October 1, 2017, the employer can correct details without the EPFO’s approval.

Requirement of supporting document has also been simplified for such cases.

Only where UAN is not linked with Aadhaar, any correction would have to be submitted physically to employer and after verification forwarded to EPFO for approval, he explained.

UAN registration is done by employer for the employee at the time of joining. For many employees, mistakes were committed by employers in recording father/spouse name, marital status, nationality and service details during the registration process or later.

In order to correct these errors, the employee had to make a request online with supporting documents.

The request would have to be verified by the employer and then forwarded to EPFO for approval before any change could be effected. This process was called joint declaration.

Out of the 8 lakh requests that were forwarded to EPFO by employers in FY 24-25, it was seen that only 40 per cent were sent within five days, 47 per cent were sent after 10 days and the average time taken by employer was 28 days.

The simplification would provide relief to employees in 45 per cent of cases through immediate correction through Aadhaar OTP verification and in the balance 50 per cent of cases through the employer itself.

If any member who can self-approve has already filed his request which is pending with the employer, the member can delete the already filed request and self-approve as per simplified process.

This will benefit nearly 3.9 lakh cases pending with employer as on date.

About the simplification of process of claims for transfer of EPF account, the minister said EPF members with fully compliant e-KYC EPF accounts can file their online transfer claims with Aadhaar OTP directly with EPFO without any need for intervention of employer. - PTI