Indore : Hammering on the practice of the employers of dodging the employee’s PF, the EPFO has recently made it mandatory for the employers to deposit the PF contributions of the employees by 15th of every month. It has cancelled the grace period of 5 days also.
As per the rules of EPFO an employer has to make the payment of salaries to its employees by 7th of every month and thereafter has to deposit the PF contribution to EPFO office by 15th of the same month. Due to the cheque clearance problem the 5-day grace period was additionally given to the employers.
However, this grace period of 5 days has been terminated as well by the department.
Talking to Free Press, Ajay Mehra, regional commissioner EPFO told that owing to the frequent use of the technology banking by the employers the time period of making payment to the employees and EPFO has been reduced drastically. Hence, it was decided to terminate the 5 days grace period.
If any employer found guilty in doing so will be liable to face suitable action under EPFO laws. Commissioner Mehra said that taking advantage of the grace period the employers hold the amount of PF contributions. In case of a large employer the amount goes up to cores of rupees.
However, the EPFO has made it mandatory for all the categories of employers to submit of their documents using digital signature.
Earlier, there was exemption for the employers having less than 50 employees to file the documents without digital signature. The provision of this regard has also been withdrawn.
