Single page claim form enough
Banking
on your provident fund savings for critical contingencies will now become far
simpler with the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) introducing a
single page composite form for such withdrawals before retirement age.
Over
eight crore Employees’ Provident Fund account holders will no longer be
required to submit evidential documents for withdrawing PF for availing housing
loans, grant of advances in case of factory closure, marriage, higher education
of children, among other things.
Till
now, employees were required to fill and submit three different forms to EPFO
for withdrawing provident fund for various purposes. “To add convenience, these
forms have now been further simplified and replaced with a single page
composite claim form,” EPFO said.
The
EPFO has introduced forms in two categories – one, for those whose Aadhaar
number is seeded with Universal Account Number (UAN) – a common number for all
PF accounts, and the other for those without an Aadhaar number. Employees whose
Aadhaar number is seeded will not be required to get employer’s attestation for
withdrawing PF but employees without the seeded Aadhaar number will need the
employer’s approval on their forms before submitting it to the EPFO.
Further,
a single form signed by the employee will be treated as ‘self-certification’
instead of the present requirement of submitting various documents. However, in
case PF is being withdrawn for medical purposes, a doctor’s certificate will
still be required.
Source: THE HINDU-22nd February,2017
