The Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has made things easy by bringing all the previous and current contributions of an employee to Employee’s Provident Fund (EPF) on a single online platform, which the member may access through an Universal Account Number (UAN).
EPF is a contributory retirement benefit scheme for salaried employees of private sector organisations. The statutory contribution is 12 per cent of the basic salary and daily allowance, if it is included in the retirement benefits, by the employee and a matching contribution by the employer. The central government also contributes 1.16 per cent of eligible basic salary.
The PF contributions are deposited to trusts authorised by the EPFO to maintain provident fund (PF) accounts of the employees.
Earlier to transfer or withdraw the PF money, employees had to visit the previous organisation and follow a cumbersome process of filling application forms in duplicate and submit it along with various documents.
However, the process becomes simple after EPFO introduced the UAN, which acts as an umbrella for the multiple Member Identification Numbers (Member Id) allotted to an individual by different establishments, which allows a member to view all the PF related details of current and previous organisations at one place.
Apart from viewing the details, the member may withdraw or transfer the PF money online without visiting previous employer(s) or filling any physical forms.
However, UAN is the key to access the facilities. In case you don’t have your UAN and unable to approach the previous employer to get it, you may retrieve the number online by visiting EPFO site https://unifiedportal-mem.epfindia.gov.in/memberinterface/ and clicking on ‘Activate UAN’ button.
The activation of UAN may be done by entering any of the following numbers:
- UAN;
- Member ID;
- Aadhaar or
- PAN
So, if don’t have the UAN, you may use either Member ID or Aadhaar or PAN.
Along with any of the above, you have to enter your name, date of birth, mobile number, email ID and captcha in the respective field. After the data is matched, an OTP will be sent to the mobile number your provided. Once you enter the OTP, another SMS mentioning your UAN and password will be sent to your mobile. So, you may retrieve the UAN online, without visiting your previous employer.
In case you you had activated the UAN, but unable to remember it, you may use ‘Know your UAN status’ button on the same site instead of ‘Activate UAN’ button.
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