Government may make UAN mandatory for EPFO subscribers

The government is considering a proposal to make it mandatory to have Universal (portable PF) Account Number (UAN) for availing of benefits of schemes run by the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO).
During an internal meeting of the EPFO held earlier this month, its Central Provident Fund Commissioner K K Jalan told senior officials that making UAN mandatory for availing of benefit of the scheme is under consideration of the government.
"... Making UAN mandatory for availing of EPF services is currently under consideration and approval of Government on same are awaited," Jalan said in the meeting, as per the minutes of the meeting.

The government is considering this proposal in view of the benefits of UAN, a senior official said.
The UAN facility was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in October last year.
The UAN remains portable throughout the lifetime of an employee and they don't have to apply for PF transfer claims at changing jobs.

It is even more beneficial for workers in the construction sector, who often change their contractor after short span of time and take up new jobs after fining one contract.
During the meeting, Jalan has told EPFO brass that the activation of UAN is of topmost priority and directed all concerned to work proactively in this regard.

He said,"approach all establishments, particularly those with more than 50 UAN members for activation."
The EPFO had issued over four crore UANs to employers across the country in July last year. These UANs were then provided to workers and the process of seeding these accounts with KYC details like PAN, Bank Account and Aadhaar started.
At present, as many as 48.63 lakh workers have activated their portable PF account numbesr. All subscribers has to activate their UAN themselves by logging into the account.