The Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has issued a new circular to standardise the process of EPF member profile update. In an internal circular issued to its zonal offices on August 23, 2023, the pension fund body has elaborated on the standard operating procedure (SOP) that must be followed in joint declaration for correction in UAN profiles.
What is joint declaration?
A joint declaration is a joint request of employees duly authenticated by the employer for the modification/addition of a member’s basic profile parameters. The changes preferred through joint declaration are required to be supported with requisite documents.
Purpose of the SoP
The SOP will help the EPFO “maintain the correct profile of the member, reduce rejection of the joint declaration and minimise fraud owing to UAN identity change”, it said.
The SOP defines the process of filing of JD application by the member, the approval by the employer, its receipt in the regional office and its approval or rejection by the competent authority in a time-bound manner. It also prescribes the list of documents to be enclosed for changes in various parameters where the members prefer a change/addition through JD. The timeline for completion of the joint declaration request has also been fixed.
“As the automated system is getting mature, the member data has started to throw a number of anomalies in profiles leading to rejections/failures/frauds. As a result, genuine members have to go through a long channel for corrections. The claims settlement also face certain difficulties across all offices due to various reasons related to data mismatch in parameters,” the pension fund body said in the circular. These parameters include:
(1) Name
(2) Gender
(3) Date of Birth
(4) Father Name
(5) Relationship
(6) Marital status
(7) Date of joining
(8) Reason of leaving
(9) Date of leaving
(10) Nationality
(11) Aadhaar Number
“Unregulated and non-standardisation of processes has led to tinkering with member identities in certain cases leading to impersonation and fraud. In this regard, the RBI and banking guidelines should also be utilised by the EPFO to further improve the robustness of its member KYC processes,” the circular read.
“To maintain the correct profile of the member, reduce rejection of the joint declaration and minimise fraud owing to UAN identity change, the standard operating procedure for the joint declaration for member profile correction has been framed,” it added.
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