EPFO extends the deadline to opt for higher pension under EPS to July 11

On Monday, the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) extended the deadline to opt for a higher pension to July 11, 2023. The EPFO has extended the deadline again to apply for higher pension for Employees’ Pension Scheme (EPS) subscribers.

"EPFO extends deadline to apply for higher pension for members till July 11," said PTI in a tweet.

Saraswathi Kasturirangan, Partner, Deloitte, said, "Employees face the uncertainty of potential changes in the pension calculation formula. There have been requests to the EPFO to extend the time limit for applying for a higher pension, which the EPFO has considered."

While there is still a lot of ambiguity about applying for and receiving a higher pension, the challenges employees face while opting for it are:

1. Where employees have multiple PF account numbers which have not been digitized/ not appear on the EPFO portal, the employees are not able to furnish such details of their pension membership

2. Employees are facing challenges in terms of approval on their application from their past employers who are no longer in existence now/ employers who have ceased their operations

3. Employees do not have a record of their contributions/ passbook available with them to be uploaded as a part of the higher pension application

4. Employers are facing challenges in approving the applications received from their employees, which includes gathering wage information on which contributions have been made.

How you can opt for a higher pension

The Employees' Provident Fund Organization ( EPFO ) has enabled an online facility for employees to opt for higher pension contributions. This is in the form of a joint application with the employee using EPFO utility. The link for the same is https://unifiedportal-mem.epfindia.gov.in/memberinterface/. Click here.

 As a next step, the employee will be required to fill in the details such as UAN, Name, Date of Birth, Aadhaar, and Aadhaar Linked Mobile Number to proceed with the application for a higher pension. The employee will receive a One-Time Password ('OTP') on the Aadhaar-linked mobile number for validation of the application.

Post validation, the employee will be required to agree to a Disclaimer message appearing as a part of the application, following which, the employee will be directed towards the next page of the application where PF membership-related information for all the previous active PF/ Pension accounts are required to be furnished along with information on bank accounts and details of contribution along with the supporting documents.

Post submission of the application by the employee on the EPFO portal, an acknowledgement number will be generated, which can be used by the employee for future reference. Further, the EPFO has also provided a link for tracking the application status for Pension applications on higher wages.