The Employees’ Provident Fund Organization (EPFO) has now made the process of transferring PF when changing jobs even simpler. The Ministry of Labor and Employment said on Friday that now in most cases there will be no need to take approval from the employer for PF transfer.
Till now, there were two EPF offices involved in transferring PF money – one ‘source office’, from where the money was withdrawn, and the other ‘destination office’, where the money was credited. In this process, the approval of the employer was necessary, which caused a delay in the transfer.
Under the new system, this process has now become largely automated, which will provide faster and convenient service to the employees.
EPFO has launched a new and improved software feature for Form 13, which will no longer require transfer claims to require approval from the destination office.
Now as soon as the claim is approved by the Transfer Office (Source Office), the member’s previous PF account will automatically get transferred to the existing (Destination) account immediately. This move is aimed at promoting ‘Ease of Living’ for EPFO members.
Under the new system, separate details of the taxable and non-taxable parts of the PF amount will also be available. This will help in correctly calculating TDS on taxable PF interest.
EPFO has also started the facility of bulk generation of UAN. Now UAN can be issued quickly on the basis of member ID and other available information, so that funds can be credited to the members’ accounts on time.
For this, a new software functionality has been deployed, which has been made available through the FO interface of the field office. This will provide the facility to link old deposited funds and generate a UAN even without Aadhaar.
However, all new UANs will be kept in frozen status as a part of risk management. They will be made operational only after Aadhaar linking, so that the members’ provident fund remains safe.
All these measures are expected to bring about a major improvement in EPFO services. This will speed up the resolution of pending complaints and will also simplify the verification process for auto settlement of eligible claims.
The auto settlement limit of the PF advance claim may increase soon
The Central Board of Trustees (CBT), the apex body of EPFO, may take a big decision next month. According to a report by Moneycontrol, the Auto-Settlement Limit (Auto-Settlement of Advance Claims – ASAC) may be approved to be increased from the current ₹ 1 lakh to ₹ 5 lakh.
After this decision, EPFO members will be able to withdraw up to ₹ 5 lakh instantly from their PF account without any manual verification. Till now, manual approval is required for withdrawal of more than ₹ 1 lakh.
Decision possible in the next meeting of CBT
A senior official told Moneycontrol, “This proposal may be approved in the next meeting of the CBT, which may be held in May. This will provide great convenience to EPFO members.”
Currently, EPFO has around 7.4 crore active members. Increasing the auto-settlement limit will make the withdrawal process faster and simpler for all these members.
The limit has already been increased
The ASAC limit was earlier increased from ₹ 50,000 to ₹ 1 lakh in May 2024. After this, the number of auto settlement claims also increased rapidly. According to the report, there were about 90 lakh auto settlement claims in FY24, which increased to about 2 crore in FY25.
It is worth noting that the auto-settlement mode was introduced for illness cases in April 2020. Since then, EPFO has been expanding the scope of this facility from time to time so that members can get quick assistance in emergencies.