FOR over 47.2 million members of the Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), the hassles associated with transfer of accounts and withdrawals, is expected to disappear soon.
The EPFO is set to introduce the facility for online filing of applications for settlement of money from the EPF accounts and also transfer of accounts from one organisation to another. "We are already in the process, we are developing the software and testing it," Central PF Commissioner Samirendra Chatterjee told Business Standard .
Chatterjee added EPFO would wait for the current work of computerisation to stabilise within the next few months. "After this, we will definitely be introducing the facility for online filing of applications for transfer and settlement of accounts, followed by a hard copy," he said.
The Central PF Commissioner said initially the digital signature facility would not be there and the members wouldhave to send a hard copy within specified time subsequent to the filing up of form online.
"We are trying to do one step at a time. Considering the huge size of our organisation, it is difficult to cope with too many facilities at one point of time," he said. The EPFO is starting the facility for online information on accounts balance from today (July 1) and the window for filing of online applications for transfer and settlement of accounts is slated for introduction after that.
He said in next few months, the online accounts updation work was expected to be completed and by December this year, all the accounts would be updated to the latest position.
Chatterjee said the members would have to go to the EPFO site and click on the relevant section for getting account balance. "They will have to mention account number and register mobile number. Once this is done, the member will get the SMS giving details of account balance," he added.
The period of account balance would depend on the updation of accounts by the concerned EPF office based on the information provided by the employer. If the details are available for 2008-09, then the account balance would reflect the amount at the end of that financial year. Chatterjee said in some cases the accounts had been updated even till 2010-11 and in those cases, the members would be able to get information about their balance till March 31, 2011.
In case of the exempted trusts, which are managed by the employers themselves, the EPFO would ask them to either introduce the facility for checking of account balance online on their own websites or get attached to the EPFO website.
Accounts balance information through website is already available