On 20th January, 2018, EPFO (Employees’ Provident Fund Organization) said that it wants to put an end to multiple account numbers of an individual once the process of linking Aadhaar is complete.
Regarding the matter additional PF commissioner SB Sinha stated that “Aadhaar seeds and bank account linking will help do away with multiple provident fund accounts, once merger of accounts happens with the help of Aadhaar seeding”.
He also added that banking account seeded with Aadhaar will be trouble – free for the members to remotely manage accounts and for claim settlements.
In additions, on the seminar on provident fund which is organised by ICC, Regional PF Commissioner Navendu Rai stated that “there were 26 lakh regular contributing members in West Bengal at present, but the number of PF accounts issued from the state was about 70 lakhs”.
“On an average, one person has three PF accounts (in West Bengal) due to change in employment”.
As we know that Government of India have made the 12 digit mandatory with many other important official documents. One of those is bank accounts and the deadline to do the same has been set which is 31st March 2018. And the accounts which won’t be linked with bank accounts by this date would be “cease to be operational”.
RBI (Reserve Bank of India) has clarified that seeding of Aadhaar with bank accounts is mandatory under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (Maintenance of Records) Second Amendment Rules.
“Some news items have appeared in a section of the media quoting a reply to RTI application that Aadhaar number linkage with bank accounts is not mandatory. The Reserve Bank clarifies that, in applicable cases, linkage of Aadhaar number to bank account is mandatory under the Prevention of Money – Laundering (Maintenance of Records) Second Amendment Rules, 2017 published in the Official Gazette on June 1, 2017. These rules statutory force and, as such, banks have to implement them without awaiting further instructions”.
To know how to link Aadhaar with your bank account, you can also read – Link your Aadhaar to your SBI Account