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 accounts
Overall ₹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.
