You can simply forget the rigour and pain involved in knowing your Provident Fund (PF) balance. After piloting the IT-based solution at three offices in two months, the Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has now expanded the facility to 75 PF offices, covering 35 States and Union Territories.
Considered to be a labyrinthine and difficult task, knowing your PF account has suddenly become an easy thing — as easy as sending an SMS. One has to go to the EPFO's home page, select the State where one's account is maintained and fill in just three parameters — account number, name (as in the PF account) and mobile number — and press ‘enter'.
The online request hits the EPFO server, looks for the matching information asked for and the balance information pops up in a few minutes. In most cases, data updated is as of September 8, 2011. It, however, doesn't mean that one will get balance figure till such date. The actual data would be up to March 31, 2010.
The EPFO is in the process of adding information to the online treasure trove to give more people access to their accounts.
The service, though not popular yet, has caught the imagination of thousands of people with PF accounts. The unique page views on the home page of this service have crossed the 22-lakh mark. The system had attended to requests of 4.6 lakh people by sending information on their balance through SMSes.