UAN without Aadhaar or PAN not portable: Minister

As many as 1.09 crore provident fund Universal Account Numbers (UANs) are portable out of a total 6.38 crore issued by the retirement fund body EPFO, Parliament was informed on Wednesday.

“As on February 29, 2016, out of 6.38 crore UANs allotted, 2.42 crore have been activated by individual members. However, of these activated UANs, in absence of either Aadh-aar or PAN, only 1.09 crore members are eligible for portability,” labour minister Bandaru Dattatreya said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha.

Portability is an inherent feature of the UAN programme. UAN provides automatic portability of PF account on change of employment, if the employee has activated his UAN by seeding his know your customer (KYC) details through the employer. The facility of UAN for Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) subscribers was formally launched on October 16, 2014.

The minister also said that as per annual accounts of the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) for 2014-15, Rs 35,531 crore have been classified as inoperative accounts as on March 31, 2015.

As per the Employees’ Provident Funds Scheme, 1952, an account is classified as inoperative one in which contributions have not been received for 36 months continuously. But all such accounts have definite claimants.