Foreign Employees to Get PF Money in Their Own Countries

The Employ­ees’ Prov­i­dent Fund Organ­i­sa­tion (EPFO) has start­ed a new facil­i­ty to trans­fer prov­i­dent funds of for­eign employ­ees to bank accounts in their own countries.staff-customer-510

The facil­i­ty will help inter­na­tion­al work­ers to avoid open­ing of bank accounts in India for set­tling their PF claims with EPFO, a senior offi­cial told PTI.

As of now, for­eign employ­ees apply­ing for with­draw­al of prov­i­dent funds (PF) are required to open bank accounts in India. After set­tle­ment of claims, they trans­fer their mon­ey from India to bank accounts in their own coun­tries — a cum­ber­some and time-con­sum­ing exercise.

Accord­ing to an order, EPFO’s Del­hi (North) office has opened three accounts with the State Bank of Indi­a’s Par­lia­ment Street (New Del­hi) branch for mak­ing pay­ment under the Employ­ees’ Prov­i­dent Fund, Employ­ees’ Pen­sion and Employ­ees’ Deposit Linked Insur­ance schemes to inter­na­tion­al employ­ees through bank accounts in their own countries.

Over 120 field for­ma­tions will make pay­ment under the three dif­fer­ent social secu­ri­ty schemes run by EPFO through three SBI accounts to inter­na­tion­al employ­ees’ accounts in their countries.

At present, the retire­ment fund body has social secu­ri­ty agree­ment with 12 coun­tries includ­ing Ger­many, France and Bel­gium. The inter­na­tion­al work­ers of these coun­tries post­ed in India are not required to make manda­to­ry con­tri­bu­tion towards social secu­ri­ty schemes run by EPFO in India.

Employ­ees from these coun­tries need to pro­duce the cer­tifi­cate of cov­er­age stat­ing that they are cov­ered under such social scheme schemes in their coun­try and get exemp­tion from con­tri­bu­tion to EPFO schemes.

Sim­i­lar priv­i­lege is enjoyed by Indi­an employ­ees post­ed in these 12 coun­tries with whom India has singed social secu­ri­ty agreements.

How­ev­er, there is a large num­ber of coun­tries with whom India has not inked any social secu­ri­ty agree­ments. There­fore, work­ers from these coun­tries are required to sub­scribe EPFO schemes and some­times their make such manda­to­ry con­tri­bu­tions in their coun­try as well.

Court­sey: NDTV

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