NEW DELHI: The mandatory matching of Aadhaar with employee details has been preventing lakhs of workers from paying monthly EPFO dues, trade union Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), an affiliate of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), said Saturday. The union wrote to the union labour minister to reconsider the newly notified Aadhaar validation rule for paying EPFO contributions.
The trade union body urged the ministry that employers should be allowed to submit EPF dues by furnishing only the Aadhaar number, without insisting on matching of the other details.
BMS said the provision, that came into effect 1 June, has held up EPF contribution of lakhs of organised sector workers and this may lead to “misappropriation of funds deducted from employees”. It said the the break in contribution could hamper pension and insurance eligibility of workers.
“It is brought to your kind notice that, only Section 142 of the Social Security Code was notified…and EPFO adopted the same and not accepting the contributions from the employees, whose details mismatch with the EPFO records. Due to which most of the employers are unable to deposit the contributions of workers, who were working with them since long time,” the BMS said in its letter addresses to labour minister Santosh Gangwar.
It said EPFO is insisting for validating Aadhaar, means unless all details like name, date of birth, gender matches, it is not allowing to pay the monthly EPF contributions.
“As the scheme is mandated for basically low wage earners i.e., below Rs.15000/- most of them are illiterates, even they are unaware about their date of birth what is recorded in EPFO and Aadhaar, therefore the disallowed account numbers mostly pertains this category only,” BMS wrote.
BMS said a delay in contributions will deprive employees of their statutory benefits like the provident fund (PF), pension, and deposit-linked insurance (EDLI) as non receipt of dues will lead to breaks and thus have an impact on final payouts.
“Therefore it is requested to consider the fact that, the decision was implemented all of sudden and a notification was issued with regard to the provision of Sec.142 of Social Security Code, which is still yet to be notified, but only one provision was bought into force without giving sufficient time to Employers, due to which lakhs of employees contributions are being held up with the Employers, and there is chance of misappropriation of funds deducted from employees…Therefore EPFO may please be directed to accept the contributions if Aadhar number is furnished, without validating the parameters by giving sufficient time to the members to rectify the mismatch, to safeguard the interests low wage earners,” it wrote.
The national workers union also said ESIC has clarified that "we cannot mandate section 142 of Social Security Code on the existing ESI Act, without notifying the entire code. Therefore it was advised to ESIC not to mandate Aadhar while enrolling or for paying contributions."
