C-DAC has been tasked to upgrade and migrate the software for auto credit of provident fund amount due in the respective bank accounts
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The Ministry of Labour and Employment has traced 1.18 lakh of the 7.11 lakh inactive Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) account holders eligible for automatic refunds of balances up to ₹1,000 lying unclaimed for years or even decades.Ministry sources told businessline that the EPFO has been able to authenticate 1.18 lakh subscribers’ individual account data with their active bank details spread across various branches in different parts of the country. They described it as part of a pro-people step which began in 2014 when the Modi government came to power and introduced the scheme of providing a unique 12-digit account number for an EPFO subscriber, called Universal Account Number (UAN).The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), a Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) research and development entity working on the complex backhand logistics, has been tasked to upgrade and migrate the software for auto credit of provident fund amount due to each of them in the respective bank accounts.Dormant AccountsOverall ₹30.52 crore has been lying idle in 7.11 lakh inoperative EPF accounts holding ₹1,000 or less. Account holders are not required to even submit any application for receiving their legitimate due PF money with interests, Ministry sources stressed.Among the painstaking layered effort as part of the EPFO 2.01 reform was that the Organisation kick started “penny drop” into Aadhar-linked inoperative accounts and after that they collected details of respective bank accounts from the banks. From that exercise, the EPFO managed to sort out names of account holders who are dead. The EPFO, according to Ministry sources, has been able to extract data, but the enabling software change is still to happen.“Now individual data has to be inserted into respective EPFO account holder’s profile. This is just one aspect of the software drive in the nation data base creation drive. Another separate process integration underway is that the existing system is only tuned to respond to “claims” by EPFO members but in this case no such thing exists. For that adjustment, the C-DAC has been authorised to create “system generated claim” facility,” Ministry sources explained.Auto RefundThe entire process, began since February 23, 2026, when Minister for Labour and Employment Mansukh Mandaviya gave a nod for a pilot project to auto credit EPF money in 7.11 lakh inoperative accounts, each having a balance of ₹1,000 or less, is expected to get ready by August end for auto refund.Once the project is successful, the Ministry wants to similarly return money of remaining 24.76 lakh subscribers, who have more than ₹1000 held in their accounts, businessline had reported earlier.The digital transformation will take away physical intervention which otherwise workers had to make for getting back their own legitimate money due to them. This was the reason for rolling out this pilot project, said Ministry sources.An EPF account is declared inoperative if it does not see any contribution for 36 months at a stretch and the EPFO also stops given interest on them.Unclaimed AccountsAs per the Ministry’s estimate, ₹10,903 crore in total is lying idle in 31.86 lakh unclaimed accounts, opened over the last two decades.EPF can be withdrawn after retirement at the age of 58, or after permanent disability, or post two months of unemployment. Partial withdrawals, however, are permitted for specific needs like medical emergencies, marriage, education, or home construction/loan repayment.Previously, the Ministry in written response to questions in Parliament has said, the total amount in the inoperative EPF account had spiralled over five-fold to ₹8,505.23 crore in FY24, from ₹1,638.37 crore in FY19. The number of accounts that had zero as closing balance for FY24 was 1,32,40,542.Published on July 26, 2026
