There is good news for Employees’ Provident Fund Organization (EPFO) members. To enhance member services and ensure the accuracy of personal data, the EPFO has streamlined the process for updating member profiles, as announced by the Ministry of Labor on Sunday.
EPFO members can now update their personal information. Under the new procedure, members with a Universal Account Number (UAN) linked to Aadhaar can modify details such as their name, date of birth, gender, nationality, parent’s name, marital status, spouse’s name, joining date, and leaving date without the need to upload any documents.
Employer verification will be necessary in certain situations. For members whose UAN was issued prior to October 1, 2017, updates will require verification from the employer. The Labour Ministry emphasized the importance of maintaining accurate personal information in the EPFO database to ensure uninterrupted service delivery and to mitigate the risk of erroneous or fraudulent payments from the fund.
Prior to this update, members had the option to modify or correct their personal information, but this required them to submit the necessary documentation and undergo verification by their employer. As per the notification from EPFO, members could already initiate an online request for changes or corrections by uploading the required documents. These requests would then be approved online by the employer before being forwarded to EPFO for final validation.
This modification is expected to enhance efficiency. In the financial year 2024-25, EPFO received approximately 800,000 requests, with around 45 percent of these now eligible for self-approval by members without needing employer confirmation. This change is anticipated to reduce the average approval time for Joint Declarations by employers, which previously took about 28 days.
Additionally, for EPF members lacking complete e-KYC, around 50 percent of their requests for changes or corrections will be approved at the employer level without requiring EPFO’s consent.
This adjustment will positively impact approximately 390,000 members whose requests are currently in various stages of processing. Members who are eligible for self-approval and have pending requests with their employer can withdraw their previous submissions and utilize the streamlined process for self-approval. In most instances, members can verify their requests directly, while in select cases, employer verification may still be necessary.
At present, roughly 27 percent of the complaints submitted by members pertain to their profiles or KYC (Know Your Customer) issues. However, with the recent introduction of the Joint Declaration feature, we anticipate a significant reduction in the number of complaints from members.