The Employees’ Provident Fund Organization (EPFO) has amended Section 142 of the Code of Social Security 2020 to implement this new rule. " Explaining the new rule, Raunak Singh, Partner, Avitr Legal, said, “The ministry of labour and Employment, Government of India brought Section 142 of the Code on Social Security, 2020 into effect from May 03, 2021, whereby an employee or any other beneficiary in order to obtain any benefit under the Social Security Code, is required to establish his/her identity (or the identity of her/his family members or dependents, as the case may be) through Aadhaar number."
Apart from missing out monthly EPF contributions from the employers, several other EPFO services will also be impacted if PF account and Aadhaar card are not linked, starting from September 1. Your contribution to the pension fund will also be affected. “Contributions to the pension fund would also be impacted due to non-linking of Aadhaar. The employers would be at statutory default due to non-deposit of the contributions and could face penal consequences under the law. On the other hand, for the employees, the contribution would not be deposited until the linking is done and employees would lose the interest on the said amount. Other services of EPFO would also remain suspended for these employees until the linkage is done," said Sadana.
In June, the Employees’ Provident Fund Organization has also updated the norms for filing Electronic Challan cum Return (ECR). It directed that the employers shall be allowed to file the electronic challan-cum-returns only for the UAN Linked with Aadhaar with effect from June 1, 2021. On June 15, 2021, EPFO extended the last date to seed the Aadhaar number with UAN from June 1, 2021 to September 1, 2021, for filing the ECR. Thus, it is mandatory for the employers to seed the Aadhaar number of its employees with UAN by August 31, 2021 while filing ECR.
