Employee Provident Fund, EPF, is an investment which is available to salaried people, and helps them accumulate money for retirement. Investment towards Employee Provident Fund account is made by both employee and employer. That means an employee has to contribute 12% of his basic salary each month towards his EPF account and an equal amount will be contributed by his employer as well.
Employee Provident Fund is managed by the Employee Provident Fund Organization (EPFO). Each month employees get their salary, after EPF amount is deducted. The amount deducted will be deposited in the EPF account by the employer. Unfortunately, many companies deduct PF contribution from their employees’ salaries, but do not deposit it with EPFO. Many employees are not aware of this and are shocked when they come to know there is no retirement corpus. So, it is advisable to check your EPF passbook frequently, to know if the EPF amount has been deposited. In this blog, we discuss how to check if EPF has been deposited and what to do if EPF has not been deposited.
You will be allowed to check EPF balance on the official website of the Employees' Provident Fund Organization (EPFO). Your UAN or Universal Account Number should be active to check your EPF balance. Your UAN is given by the EPFO and it will be the same throughout your life.
There is an option to check your EPF balance by sending an SMS to 7738299899. The message should be sent as shown below:
EPFOHO UAN ENG. ENG stands for the first three letters of the language you prefer. If you want to receive a message in Hindi, then type EPFOHO UAN HIN. This facility is available in English, Hindi, Punjabi, Gujarati, Marathi, Kannada, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, and Bengali.
You can check your EPF balance just by giving a missed call on 011-22901406 from your registered mobile number. Once you give a missed call, you will receive a message providing PF details. To avail this service, your UAN must be seeded with your bank account number, Aadhaar, and PAN.
You can also check your EPF balance by downloading the UMANG app which is available on Google Play Store.
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According to the rules, it is mandatory for employers to deposit Employee Provident Fund, once it is deducted from employees' salary. Not depositing Employee Provident Fund with the EPFO is an offense. You can take the following action, if you get to know your employer has not deposited EPF.
1. If your employer does not deposit PF, you can file a criminal case against him in a police station. You need to file a complaint in the police station which comes under the jurisdiction of your employer.
2. Along with filing FIR, you can also take up the matter with the provident fund department by sending an email to cvo@epfindia.gov.in.
3. You can even file a written complaint in your regional PF office. You can find the contact details and address of the PF offices on http:www.epfindia.com.
4. You can also contact your regional PF inspector and ask him to take an action against the employer.
Your complaint must contain the salary slip which indicates PF deduction from your salary, name, and address of your employer.
As per the rules, if a company is found not depositing the PF, they are required to pay dues along with the interest penalty on the same. Interest penalty is charged depending on the number of days of delayed payment.
If your issues are not looked into by the company, you can file your complaints on Iamcheated.com. Iamcheated.com is a free online consumer complaints portal, which helps resolve consumer complaints online. Once the complaint is posted on Iamcheated.com, it is sent immediately to the concerned company for resolution. Iamcheated.com does not charge a single rupee from consumers for resolving the complaints.
