Changed Jobs? Where is Your EPF Money?

For many employees, transfer of EPF becomes a nightmare when changing jobs. We give you the likely problem scenarios and what you should do for a seamless transfer of your EPF upon changing jobs and states

- Anuradha Mishra

Imagine spending hours trying to log into a website, navigating between different portals to complete your tasks, such as updating your details or documents, and then being timed out just before hitting the 'Submit' button. That's the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) or the Universal Account Number (UAN) website for you. This seemingly minor inconvenience-a sluggish portal that often crashes at critical moments-is just the tip of the iceberg in a system riddled with complexities.

Says Harsh Roongta, a Securities and Exchange Board of India-registered investment advisor (Sebi-RIA): "It's not just a technology problem; it's a problem of architecture. EPFO was structured in a completely different era in the 1950s. The system was designed to extract money from employers and keep it for employees to use in old age. Over time, only patchwork solutions like the UAN have been added without addressing the core challenges."

On the face of it, the process looks simple. Says Amey Kanekar, co-founder of FinRight, a platform resolving complex personal finance challenges, "Based on our observation, EPFO usually settles a transfer request within 25 days of it being accepted by the employer. Users can raise a grievance on https://epfigms.gov.in/ or visit the concerned provident fund (PF) office and follow up."

But the PF transfer issue usually hits a roadblock when there are incorrect details that are not resolvable online and the process moves offline. What could be a straightforward process often turns out into a drawn-out ordeal, exposing gaps in the system.

Roongta adds, "The EPFO has done very little to change its focus from being a benefactor to being a service-providing organisation."

For millions of employees across India, navigating the EPFO's labyrinthine bureaucratic processes has turned out to be anything but smooth sailing.