Members of the Employees Provident Fund Organisation will soon be able to withdraw their provident fund via UPI or the Unified Payments Interface. The government has completed testing of this new facility.
As per reports, Union Labour Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said, “We have completed the testing of the facility where members can withdraw EPF through the use of the UPI payment gateway. The withdrawn amount will be directly transferred into the bank account of the member.” The Labour Ministry has been working on a system under which a part of the EPF balance will remain locked while the remaining eligible amount can be withdrawn instantly via UPI-linked bank accounts.
As reported by PTI, Labour Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said EPFO has been taking several steps to improve services for members and make fund withdrawals faster and easier.
Earlier this week, Ramesh Krishnamurthi, Central Provident Fund Commissioner at the EPFO, told reporters that the organisation plans to extend the auto-settlement route and aims to include final provident fund withdrawal claims as well as automate the transfer of accounts when members change employers.
While the aim has been to make the provident fund withdrawal process easier and faster, reports also suggest that the EPFO is moving to simplify how members interact with it. The organisation is planning to use WhatsApp to expand outreach. The choice of the platform and the aim to interact is deliberate as the organisation believes most mobile users are already on Whatsapp for their day-to-day communication and so therefore the interface is familiar and easy to use. Reports suggest communication on the interface will be in local language enabling greater comfort for members to engage with the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation while automated systems will handle queries ’round the clock’.
EPF Withdrawal via UPI Soon: Government Completes Testing
