Under the jurisdiction Nagpur region Employees Provident Fund Office, 15 lakh employees and officials have their EPF accounts. However, out of the accounts 11,776 accounts became inoperative in which, Rs 16 crore unclaimed amount is available. In Nagpur, there is zero unclaimed amount, said EPF commission, Vikas Kumar while addressing a press a press conference here on Tuesday.
He said that public interest litigation is pending in the HC against EPF and as the matter is sub-judice he cannot comment more. Kumar further said that the petitioner mentioned that the EPF has more than Rs 40,865 crore unclaimed money. For his claim, the petitioner has given the reference of union minister of labour and employment Bangaru Dattatray. However, the petitioner has not mentioned from where he accessed the statement of the union minister due to which the figures may be of for entire nation, Kumar claimed. Prior to this as per newspaper report the figure was Rs 351 crore.
Kumar further said that such news is creating confusion due to which he has organized the press conference and clarified the situation from Nagpur office side. He claimed that there is no corruption in the EPF funds and until the government of India the EPF amount is secure. He said that the amount is 100 percent of the consumers and it will be given to their legal heirs. Kumar alleged that the persons who are not willing to pay money to the workers are spreading the rumours. Devendra Sontakke, Surendra Azad and Niranjan Sarsiya were present in the press conference.
The EPF commissioner said that if the EPF account holder retired in age of 55 years and if for next three years he or his heirs not claimed or after 36 months of the death of the employee if his heirs did not file any claim on the EPF amount then the account became inoperative. After 36 months, the interest is also paid to such accounts, but the amount in the account will remain in the name of the account holder. Even after many years, if the legal heirs of the employees submit claim with necessary documents then decision is taken as per the directives of the union government.
