27 establishments surrender exemption under EPFO in last two years
procedures for exempted establishments and improving its own services has led 27 establishments to surrender their exemption under the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation in the last two years, adding about 30,000 employees and Rs 1688.82 crore to the retirement fund body.
As of 31st March 2023, there are 1002 exempted establishments managing the provident fund corpus of Rs 3,52,000 crore of 31,20,323 members.
Establishments that wish to manage the provident fund (PF) corpus of their employees need to seek exemption under Section 17 of the EPF Act. This allows EPFO to permit them to manage their own PF Trust without making statutory contributions.
Such exempted establishments are statutorily mandated to provide benefits that are at least on par with those provided by EPFO to subscribers and comply with the notified conditions of exemption as outlined in the Act.
“Due to improved services, more establishments are surrendering their exemptions granted by EPFO. These establishments prefer to let EPFO manage their employees’ provident fund (PF) directly, allowing them to focus on their core business activities,” EPFO said in a statement issued on Sunday.
“The increasingly enhanced focus of EPFO on its stakeholders, along with professionally managed funds generating steady returns for members, has promoted the trend of surrendering exemptions,” it added.
As per the statement, services provided by EPFO, both to the establishments and its members, including faster claim settlement, higher rates of return, strong
