Your Provident Fund Money Will Be Blocked If You Documents Are Not Linked: Last Date, How To Link, Rules Change & More

You toiled hard for a month. You gave your blood and sweat for the job in hand. Now when you are at the month-end, you would be expecting the full benefits of your hard work. But what if you get paid a partial amount only. And that too because of a technicality? This situation might arise in the upcoming months if your Universal Account Number (UAN) is not linked to Aadhaar Card.

Employers won’t be able to credit PF if your UAN is not linked to Aadhaar

Next month onwards, your employer will be able to credit money in your provident fund (PF) account only if your UAN (universal account number) is linked to your Aadhaar card. The government has made it mandatory to link your Aadhaar card with the provident fund account to get various benefits of the retirement fund. So, if the employees have not liked UAN and Aadhaar, they might miss on various things in the future.

While explaining the new rule, Raunak Singh, Partner at Avitr Legal, said, The Employees’ Provident Fund Organization (EPFO) has amended Section 142 of the Code of Social Security 2020 to implement this new rule. The ministry of labor 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.”

Other benefits might also get hampered

Apart from missing out on monthly EPF contributions from the employers, several other EPFO services might also be impacted if the PF account and Aadhaar card are not linked, starting from September 1. Your contribution to the pension fund will also be affected.

While explaining the implications of this move, Subodh Sadana, Partner at AnantLaw, said, “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 interest on the said amount. Other services of EPFO would also remain suspended for these employees until the linkage is done.”

So, if you don’t want to lose out on your own hard-earned money, we recommend getting the linking done at the earliest.