Description

EPF or Employee Provident Fund, is the govt.-managed retirement saving scheme which provides social safety net to employees after their retirement. EPF is applicable on all private and public employees working under formal sector only. This fund is managed by Employees Provident Fund Organization of India (EPFO). Under this scheme, matching contributions up to 12% of salary has been paid by the employees and employers in each.

PF mission is to extend the Reach and Quality of publicly managed old age income security programs through consistent and ever-improving standards of compliance and benefits delivery in a manner that wins the approval and confidence of members in our methods, honesty and integrity

PF issue has been attracting so much attention because of the following reasons:

1. COMPULSORY CONTRIBUTION: PF is a contribution of 12% from basic salary with an equal contribution from employer. However employers have tried to shift the burden of their contribution also to employee thereby causing a huge cut in salaries.

2. LOW WAGES: The low wage structure prevailing in our country adds to the problems because almost almost 30 million out of 37 million provident fund contributors get a salary less than 15000. In spite of this cut in the form of epf and non withdrawal clause has raised concern among many.

3. LARGE CORPUS: PF maintains a large corpus of 1.7 trillion dollars. So this automatically raises attention from every corner.

4. IMPROVED SERVICE: The improved service delivery by epfo through transferable 12 digit number and also online services has raised awareness among people.