The Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has notified an order to make Universal Account Number (UAN) mandatory for all employers covered under the Employees Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952. The government was considering the proposal to make UAN mandatory for availing benefits of the scheme. The UAN facility was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in October last year.

The deadline for completing the formalities is August 25 after which action can be taken against those failing to comply with the order. UAN remains portable throughout the lifetime of employees and they don’t have to go through the cumbersome process of applying for PF transfer claims at changing jobs.

EPFO had issued more than four crore UANs to employers across the country last July. These UANs were then provided to workers and the process of seeding these accounts with KYC details like PAN, bank account and Aadhaar started.

What is UAN?

• UAN stands for Universal Account Number.
• It is a 12-digit number allotted to employee who is contributing to EPF will be generated for each of the PF member by EPFO.
• 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.

Tidbits

• The Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation is a statutory body of the Government of India under the Ministry of Labour and Employment.
• EPFO administers a compulsory contributory Provident Fund Scheme, Pension Scheme and an Insurance Scheme.