The Employee Provident Fund (EPF) is a retirement savings plan for salaried employees in India. It is managed by the Employees’ Provident Fund Organization (EPFO), which is an autonomous body under the Ministry of Labour and Employment. Both employees and employers contribute to the employee’s EPF account, and subject to certain terms and conditions, the employee may withdraw the EPF amount either upon retirement or before.
The EPFO currently maintains 24.77 crore accounts, according to its annual report 2019-20 pertaining to the members.
The EPFO in March 2022 announced to cut down the interest on provident fund deposits for 2021-22 to 8.1 per cent from 8.5 per cent, the previous year. The interest is paid at a rate determined by the EPFO’s apex decision-making body, the Central Board of Trustees (CBT), for each fiscal year.
Even after it was ratified in June 2022, trustees of EPFO have been raising the issue of non-credit of interest for EPF for the year 2021-22.
However, if you want to see if the interest has been credited to your passbook, you can go to your provident fund account and check the balance.
This can be done on the EPFO’s official website using a passbook. The passbook will have information about your provident fund (PF) balance.
EPF eligibility criteria:
– Employees are eligible for EPF benefits from the day they start working for an organisation.
– A company with at least 20 employees can provide EPF benefits to its employees.
How to check your provident fund balance:
-Go to epfindia.gov.in, and click on ‘Services’ at the top of the dashboard (first from left).
-Here, click on ‘For Employees;’ on the page that opens, select ‘Member Passbook’ under ‘Services.’
-Here, sign in by entering your Universal Account Number (UAN), password, and the captcha code. Click on ‘Login.’
-Now, you will be taken to the main EPF account page, where you will see all the details.
-If you want to print the passbook, click on ‘Download Passbook.’ After downloading, take a print of the PDF file.
