The Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPF) has announced that it has relaxed the requirement of mandatory uploading of the image of cheque leaf, attested bank passbook for certain eligible cases.
This will help to expedite the settlement of claims filed online and reduce the number of claims that are rejected because the image of the cheque leaf/attested bank passbook was not uploaded when the claim was filed online.
Validations include Online Verification of the Bank KYC by concerned Bank/NPCI, Verification of Bank KYC by the employer using DSC, Seeded Aadhaar Number verified by UIDAI among others.
According to the EPFO circular dated May 28, 2024, “With a view to facilitate the speedy settlement of claims filed online and to reduce the rejection of claims due to the reason of non-uploading of the image of cheque leaf/ attested bank passbook while filing claims online, it has been decided with the approval of the CPFC to relax the requirement of mandatory uploading of the image of cheque leaf/ attested bank passbook for certain eligible cases based on certain validations which include Online Verification of the Bank KYC by concerned Bank/NPCI, Verification of Bank KYC by the employer using DSC, Seeded Aadhaar Number verified by UIDAI among others.”
In all such cases, the following message is displayed in the last part of the PDF of the claim.
“The bank KYC has been online verified by bank and has been digitally signed by the employer for this case among other validations and therefore, mandatory uploading of the image of cheque leaf/attested bank passbook is not required”
In order to make it easier for officers dealing with to identify claims that qualify for this relaxation, such claims will shortly be colour tagged. This will help to avoid any accidental claims being returned because the bank passbook or cheque leaf picture was not uploaded.
Is it compulsory to enclose cancelled original cheque with claim form
According to the EPFO FAQ page, “A cancelled original cheque bearing name of the member, his bank account number IFSC code of the bank should be printed on the cheque itself. In case, member’s bank account is without ‘cheque book’ facility, then copy of its first page of passbook duly attested by the bank manager may be enclosed with the claim form.”
Also read: EPFO multi-location claim settlement to speed up member claims
Steps in Brief would be as follows:
Step 1
Login to the member interface using UAN credentials.
Step 2
Satisfy oneself that KYC and service eligibility conditions as mentioned against his UAN are correct and complete.
Step 3
Select the relevant claim.
Step 4
Authenticate using OTP received against the mobile registered with UIDAI to complete the online claim submission.
