Standard Operating Procedure notified on joint declarations for updating member profile on EPFO online portal

 The Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) issued a circular on 23 August 2023 notifying the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) on processing the joint declarations for updating the member profile on the EPFO online portal.

The SOP is issued to streamline the process for receipt of joint declaration for updating/ correction in the Universal Account Number (UAN) records by the member/employer and the process to be followed by the Regional Provident Fund offices for processing the same. The SOP would help reduce the anomalies in the member profile which lead to rejections/failures/ frauds as well as difficulties for members in claim settlement.

Some of the key aspects of the SOP are listed below:

• The SOP defines the following 11 parameters for correction/updation by employees through joint declarations:
  
  1.Name
  2.Gender
  3.Date of Birth
  4.Father’s Name/Mother’s Name
  5.Relationship
  6.Marital Status
  7.Date of Joining
  8.Reason of Leaving
  9.Date of Leaving
  10.Nationality
  11.Aadhaar Number
  
  All parameters other than the marital status can be updated only once, unless in case of any exception, which may be examined and processed after duly recording the reasons.
• The changes in the 11 parameters are further classified as major and minor changes depending on the type of change in each parameter. The SOP also defines the competent authority who would be the initiator, verifier and approver for major and minor corrections in each of the 11 parameters respectively.
• As per the process, the employee member shall first submit the joint declaration application from his/her unified portal login along with relevant documents. Employer shall verify the form and the documents uploaded by the member and then upload the supporting document required from the employer. Once the form is submitted, the competent authorities shall take if forward for processing as per the mechanism prescribed in the SOP.

• The SOP also prescribes the following:
  
  1.Format of the joint declaration form
  2. List of documents to be submitted along with the joint declaration form for change in each parameter by employer/employee
  3. Process map along with screenshots of the EPFO online portal explaining the entire step-wise process
  4. Timelines for processing major/minor change requests (7 days for minor change and 15 days for major change) along with a mechanism for monitoring the timelines by the EPFO.
  5. Manner of processing changes under special circumstances.