The Employees? Provident Fund Organisation on Wednesday extended the March 1 deadline of making the Aadhaar number mandatory for subscribers as it could not be implemented in 10 states.
This is a setback to the EPFO?s plan of making its scheme portable, which will ensure that the EPF account number will remain same even if the employee switches jobs. This was a necessity for migratory workers, especially those in the construction sector.
EPFO recently reviewed the progress of Aadhaar enrollment for its subscribers with the Unique Identification Authority of India and inferred that it was difficult to meet the March 1 deadline.
In a letter to all regional offices, the central provident fund commissioner Anil Swarup said, ?It has been decided to not to make Aadhar number.enrollment mandatory for EPF members by March 1, 2013.?
However, the EFPO offices have been directed to make ?maximum efforts? to obtain the available Aadhaar numbers of the EPF members.
The difficulty in meeting the deadline was because of the fact that UIDAI was holding camps in 18 states while the registrar general of India was collecting data for National Population Register in the remaining states. While the data collected by RGI is also being processed for issue of Aadhaar, the methodology used by RGI was different and hence the delay in issuing Aadhaar numbers.
Last month, the government flagged off the direct benefit scheme with much fanfare in 20 districts to transfer subsidies, pension and scholarhip directly into the bank accounts of the poor. There are reports that progress has been tardy in many parts of the country and even in districts where it has been implemented, not all have been able to get the benefit.
