New rule for EPF death claim: Is Aadhaar seeding mandatory for physical claims?

May 22, 2024, 02:00:32 PM IST

The Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) announced that in the event of an EPF member’s death, it has received specific references from field offices stating that they cannot seed and validate Aadhaar. The EPFO stated in a circular dated May 17, 2024, that in certain instances, filing officials could not process the aforementioned physical claims, which caused an unwarranted delay in the prompt transfer of compensation to the affected claimants.

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Who is it applicable for?

The above instructions would apply only to those cases where the details of the member are correct in UAN but inaccurate/incomplete in Aadhaar database. According to the EPFO circular dated May 17, 2024, “Wherever, the data in Aadhaar are correct but inaccurate/incomplete in UAN, the instructions issued in Para 6.9 and 6.10 of JD SOP version-2 dated 26.03.2024 will be strictly adhered to by the field offices to rectify the data in the UAN, seed & validate/authenticate the Aadhaar so as to comply with the instructions as issued in the earlier Circular dated 24.09.2020 vide reference, without any deviation whatsoever.”

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What are the issues EPF field offices faced

The delay would occur in case of inaccurate/incomplete member details in Aadhaar, unavailability of Aadhaar in respect of pre-Aadhaar death cases, deactivated Aadhaar, technical error in validating Aadhaar from UIDAI database, etc.

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Consequently, it has been decided that going forward, in all such death cases, processing physical claims without seeding Aadhaar may be permitted as a temporary measure, but only with the proper approval of the OIC in an e-office file duly recording the details of verification done to confirm the deceased’s membership and the genuineness of the claimants. Preventing any fraudulent withdrawals can be done in addition to other due diligence measures that the OIC deems appropriate.

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Death of member without Aadhaar

As per the JD SOP version-2 dated 26.03.2024, “ In case of the death of a member without an Aadhaar, then the nominee’s Aadhaar will be saved in the system, and the nominee may be allowed to sign the JD form. Other processes will remain the same. There may be cases where the deceased member has not filed a nomination during his lifetime. In the absence of a valid nomination, one of the family members/legal heirs of the member may be allowed to attest the JD and submit his/her Aadhaar with the consent of other family members/legal heirs.”

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