After discovering that the UIDAI is organising enrolment camps only in 18 states, the provident fund body decided to withdraw its decision to make Aadhaar number mandatory for all EPFO members

The Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has said that looking at the difficulties in enrolment, it has decided not to make the UID (Unique Identification) or Aadhaar number mandatory for its over five crore members. The provident fund body said it would now collect core banking account number of all contributing members as indicated in electronic challan cum return (ECR).

Trade unions (TUs) had also raised the red flag against the retirement fund body’s suo moto decision to make submission of Aadhaar mandatory citing difficulties in obtaining Aadhaar.

In a release, the EPFO said, “In view of the discussion held with officials of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), and the time required in the process of obtaining Aadhaar numbers, it may not be possible to obtain Aadhaar number or enrolment number by EPF members by 1 March 2013. Therefore it has been decided not to make Aadhaar number or enrolment number mandatory for EPF members from 1 March 2013.”

During the discussion, the EPFO found that UIDAI through its registrars has been organising enrolment camps in 18 states only. “Registrar General of India (RGI) has been collecting data in respect of the remaining states through National Population Register (NPR). While data collected by RGI is also being processed for issue of Aadhaar numbers by UIDAI, the methodology used by RGI for setting up enrolment camps is different i.e. it is being done on the basis of house-to-house data collected by enumerators during Census Operations 2011, unlike UIDAI camps, where any resident, irrespective of the place of residence can get himself enrolled for Aadhaar number. Thus enrolment may take considerable time,” the EPFO said.

It also asked its regional and sub-regional offices to make an all-out effort to collect the core banking account number of all contributing members as indicated in the ECR. “The updation of members’ master in the database is one of the standards required for implementation of the ISO 9001 certification and the success indicator under the Results Framework Document (RFD). In view of the benefits that would accrue both to the EPF members and EPFO, it has now been decided to collect the core banking account number of all contributing members as indicated in the ECR,” the pension fund body said.

Last month, EPFO had said that new members joining the its retirement fund scheme will have to mandatorily furnish Aadhaar number as know your customer (KYC) credential for enrolment from 1 March 2013. The move was opposed by TUs.

Questioning the decision of the EPFO, trade union leaders had said that it would be impossible for the members to provide Aadhaar numbers as the scheme was not operational in many parts of the country. Also it was cumbersome to get the numbers in states where the scheme is operational.

EPFO is working towards creating a central database where all members would have a unique account number and would not require to transfer PF accounts to another one in the event of changing jobs.

EPFO recently digitalised its database of regional offices and launched its e-passbook service where subscribers can access their account online. Now the body is working towards integrating this digital database and bring it together at one place.