The Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation has won the National Award on e-Governance 2015-16 for launching the Universal Account Number (UAN). The UAN facility enables workers to transfer their provident fund deposits while switching jobs anywhere in India easily. The EPFO won the gold award in the ‘innovative use of technology in e-governance’ category and the retirement body will get a cash prize of Rs 2 lakh.

The award will be presented by the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions to the EPFO in the 19th National Conference on e-governance to be held in Nagpur on January 22. Through UAN, active employees are provided a universal number which can be linked to various provident fund account numbers provided to them while working in different organisations.

A single account number can be used through all of workers’ employments with various organisations. When a worker changes his job, he is required to inform his UAN to new employer and after the previous and present employments are linked to the number, the transfer process happens on its own.

Earlier, the worker had to apply for transfer of funds on change of job from one organisation to another. The portal also allows a worker view his provident fund balance on a real-time basis without going through the employer. The EPFO had launched UAN in July 2014 and 5.65 crore workers in 4.57 lakh organisations had been allocated UAN till November last year.