“The increasing trend of slow recovery of arrears of provident fund and allied dues has been a matter of great concern. So much so that performance in recovery of current and arrear dues is far below the targets fixed by the headquarters,” the retirement fund body EPFO said in a directive issued to its regional offices.
“In order to augment recovery, it has been decided that a special recovery drive is carried out for the months of December, January and February 2023 for both exempted and unexempted establishments,” it added.
According to the directive, seen by ET, the above actions are meant to be taken for meeting the objectives of speedy recovery of dues and not for any harassment of the employers or defaulters.
In the absence of recovery of dues from defaulting establishments, EPFO can initiate recovery actions such as attachment of movable and immovable properties, attachment of bank account, appointment of receiver and arrest of employer and detention.
EPFO has also directed its zonal offices to submit weekly consolidated recovery reports on performance of regional offices during the special recovery drive. Besides, it has asked its regional offices to ensure that all targets for recovery, as communicated to the head office, should be met during the special drive. EPFO had in the past conducted such special recovery drives to recover its dues from defaulters through its regional offices.
EPFO has more than 60 million subscribers and manages a corpus of over Rs 12 lakh crore. Its beneficiaries are entitled to provident funds, pension, and insurance benefits under three different schemes of EPFO.
