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For employed employees, the Provident Fund (PF) deposited in the Employees’ Provident Fund Organization (EPFO) is the safest savings of their lifetime. But when it comes to withdrawing money from PF in emergency, making advance claim or transferring PF on change of job, the claims of lakhs of employees get rejected just because there is a mismatch between their EPF records and Aadhaar card details. A single letter mistake in the spelling of the name, difference in the date of birth, discrepancy in the father’s name or wrongly registering the date of joining and leaving the job kept the claim settlement stuck for years. Earlier, to get this problem resolved, the employee had to visit the offices and get the physical form signed and stamped by the HR of the company and submit it to the regional office of EPFO. But now EPFO has completely made the digital ‘Joint Declaration’ module live on its Member Seva Portal, through which account holders can get their records corrected in 5 simple steps from their mobile or laptop without visiting any office.
Employees Provident Fund Organization has significantly expanded the range of online correction by issuing Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for the convenience of account holders. Now members can correct 11 key details in their UAN profile online. These include employee’s name, gender, date of birth, father’s/mother’s name, marital status, nationality, Aadhaar number, PAN card details, bank account number, date of joining and date of exit. EPFO has divided these reforms into two categories—’Minor Change’ (minor change) and ‘Major Change’ (major change). Minor changes include alteration of one or two letters in name or difference in date of birth of less than 3 years, which can be processed in a few days with only Aadhaar OTP and basic ID proof. Whereas major changes require supporting legal documents like passport, PAN or gazette notification.
Under the official digital process prescribed by EPFO, you can correct the mistakes in your profile in these five steps.
Step 1: First of all go to the official Unified Member Portal of EPFO (Unified Member Portal – unifiedportal-mem.epfindia.gov.in). Login here by entering your 12 digit Universal Account Number (UAN), password and the captcha code shown on the screen. After this, a 6 digit OTP will come on the mobile number linked to your Aadhaar, submit it and open the dashboard.
Step 2: After logging in to the portal, click on the ‘Manage’ tab in the main menu bar above. In the drop-down list you will see the option of ‘Joint Declaration’, click on it. After this, select your company or member ID in whose records you want to make corrections.
Step 3: Complete details of your account will appear on the screen. Here on one side ‘Present Details’ will be visible and on the other side there will be a column to fill ‘Desired Details’ (Corrected Details) with empty box. Tick the checkbox next to any field you want to make corrections (like name, father’s name, date of birth etc.) and type the correct details as per the Aadhaar card.
Step 4: After entering the details, upload the self-attested PDF file (between 100 to 500 KB) of the relevant supporting documents (like Aadhar Card, PAN Card, Passport, 10th Marksheet or Birth Certificate) as per the new rules of EPFO. After this, tick the consent declaration form given below and click on ‘Get OTP’. Submit the final form by filling the OTP received on the mobile linked to Aadhaar.
Step 5: Once submitted, a reference tracking ID will be generated. Your application will go directly to the digital portal of your current or previous company (Employer). Once approved by the employer through digital signature (DSC), it will reach the field officer of EPFO. The record will be updated automatically after verification by the field officer.
Before submitting the online joint declaration, it is very important to keep the required documents scanned so that there are no errors in the application. If you are making a minor change in name or surname, then Aadhaar card, PAN card or Voter ID card is sufficient. If correction in date of birth is to be made, then birth certificate, passport, 10th mark sheet issued from a recognized board or school leaving certificate is valid. For correction in the name of father or mother, a copy of ration card, passport or service record can be submitted. All documents should be clear, readable and in PDF format. Uploading of blurry or unclear documents may result in EPFO officials rejecting the application.
After submitting the form, employees can check the real-time status of their application by going to the ‘Track Joint Declaration Request’ option. Under normal circumstances, in cases of minor changes, EPFO updates the records within 7 to 15 working days of approval by the employer. Whereas verification of major changes may take 20 to 30 days. Once the records are correct, members can seamlessly avail the facilities of online PF withdrawal, advance claim, pension transfer and e-passbook download without any interruption. To avoid the hassle of claim rejection, every PF account holder should match his profile with Aadhaar in time.