Interest free partial withdrawal for EPFO members; announcement likely soon

New Delhi: In what could benefit Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) subscribers who are jobless for a longer period, the retirement fund body may soon come up with a new option on provident fund withdrawal.

Sources have told Zee Media, the Central Board of Trustees (CBT) in a crucial meeting on April 13, will discuss options to allow interest-free partial withdrawal to the employees who are without any jobs for over two months. Sources have also told Zee Media that this partial withdrawal will be allowed only for one time.

As per current rules, if an EPFO subscriber quits the job and he/she is not going to be employed for another two months, then such subscribers can claim for full and final settlement of whatever balance remains in their account.

For example, an employee leaves his job in January and he/she has not got any job till April, then the employee can claim for full and final EPFO settlement.

Among the various options, the CBT will also decide in its meeting whether or not to give the subscriber an option to return the partial withdrawal to EPFO or not, sources said.

Last month, EPFO took another step towards becoming a paperless organisation. The retirement fund body made it mandatory to file online claims for provident fund withdrawals above Rs 10 lakh.

EPFO also made it mandatory to file online claims for withdrawals of above Rs 5 lakh under the Employees Pension Scheme 1995.

Under the pension scheme, there is a provision of partial withdrawal of pension, commonly known as commutation of pension money. Before the decision, EPFO subscribers had the option of filing online as well as manual claims for provident fund withdrawal as also for the pension.

EPFO has also lowered the rate of interest on employees provident fund to 8.55 percent for its over 6-crore subscribers for 2017-18, from 8.65 percent in the previous fiscal.

The EPFO has over six crore subscribers and manages a corpus of Rs 10 lakh crore.

(Reporting by Prakash Priyadarshi)