PF rules changes

03/11/2016

PF rules change in the works, much to the relief for 10 crore employees

Union labour minister, Bandaru Dattatreya said, “The inoperative Employee Provident Fund (EPF) accounts are not being paid interest since 2011. As per the instructions given by Prime Minister NarendraModi and finance minister ArunJaitley, we decided to start paying interest to those accounts to make them operative”.

The government is all set to issue the notification and has already signed the file concerned.About 97 million employees will benefit from this notification. This is a Diwali gift for the people.

“People can park their funds in EPF as long they want. Since the inoperative accounts are getting interest, people may not like to withdraw. It is a safe investment also. If not today, tomorrow we will have to pay to the claimant. So there is nothing called unclaimed,” a senior official of the ministry had earlier said. In case of EPF, if there is no contribution paid during the last 36 months, then that account is classified as “inoperative”, the official said.

There will be a review meeting on EPFO which is scheduled on Tuesday; it will discuss the issue in detail.

The minister further added, “The current zonal system will be further enhanced so that the reach is high. There is a chance that every state will get a zonal office”. The government is on the task of structuring EPFO to increase social security scheme to all the sectors.