No more revenue stamp on PF withdrawal claims

Retirement fund body EPFO has done away with the mandatory requirement of affixing one rupee revenue stamp on PF withdrawal claim forms.

"Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation has done away with the mandatory requirement of affixing one rupee revenue stamp on claim forms thereby bringing independence from this hassle to millions of PF subscribers every year," Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya said.

He stated that the EPFO is further smoothening the process of PF claim settlement.

Henceforth, one rupee revenue stamp will not be required for most of the claim forms as in 97 per cent cases of PF settlement, the payment is made through National Electronic Fund Transfer, he said.

The decision was taken after consultation with Ministry of Law & Justice that opined that as per practice, no revenue stamp is required with respect to payment made through NEFT.

Dattatreya added that EPFO is further simplifying its forms to ensure hassle free services to the subscribers.

Besides, there is a proposal to do away with attestation of employer in cases where the employees have got their Know Your Customer information, including Aadhar, seeded and have activated their Universal Account Number.

This is aimed at reducing employer dependency in the transactions that an employee would undertake with EPFO.

It is noted that because of over dependence on employers, EPFO subscribers are not able to avail quick and easy services of the organisation, the statement said.

EPFO has a subscriber base of around 6 crore (Rs 60 million).

It manages a huge corpus of over Rs 6.5 lakh crore (Rs 6.5 trillion) with an incremental annual deposits of Rs 1 lakh crore (Rs 1 trillion).

Illustration by Uttam Ghosh/Rediff.com