Employees who left EPFO membership before January 1, 2014, now do not need to furnish their UAN for settlement of PF claims or withdrawal.

“Claim forms may be accepted without UAN if the date of leaving/exit of the member is before 01.01.2014,” says a circular dated July 13, by the Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) sent to all zonal and regional offices.

Interestingly, the circular added that in “exceptional cases”, the officers-in-charge of a regional office may “at their discretion based on merits of the case allow acceptance of claim forms without UAN.”

With effect from January 1, 2016, the EPFO had made it mandatory for all members to furnish the Universal Account Number (UAN) for settlement of claims, such as PF withdrawal.

EPFO said the decision to relax norms was taken after instances of some difficulties for members who had ceased to be in employment before January 1, 2014 were brought to light, “given the fact that initially UAN was allotted to only members who were subscribers during January 2014 to June 2014.”

The retirement fund body has so far allotted over four crore UANs to its contributing subscribers.

Commenting on the move, Sonal Arora, Vice-President, TeamLease Services, said: “This relaxation for employees who have left the EPFO membership before 2014, was really required,” adding that though EPFO was trying to promote UAN that had its own merits, “for employees who exited the EPFO even before the UAN was rolled out, this mandatory requirement was rather unjustified.”

She said EPFO has about nine crore inoperative or dormant account, and at least 80 per cent of these accounts are in all likelihood of members who exited before 2014.

“Therefore, almost seven crore exited EPFO members can expect to benefit from this move, should they choose to withdraw their PF,” she added.

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