The Hindu : EPFO gives defaulters a month's notice

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jul 09, 2003

National

National

EPFO gives defaulters a month's notice

By Our Staff Correspondent

NEW DELHI JULY 8. The Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has given defaulting companies a month's time to deposit their arrears, failing which, they would be blacklisted and their names made public.

The names of 600 defaulting companies would be published in the newspapers and displayed on the EPFO website.

The Labour Ministry can even withdraw the exemptions accorded to them.

The EPFO's total outstanding is Rs. 1,511.79 crores, of which Rs. 436.60 crores is currently locked up in court stays, Rs. 103.84 crores in liquidation proceedings and Rs. 269.28 crores in the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction (BIFR), while Rs. 370.46 crores is held up for other reasons. The total `realisable' amount is Rs. 331.61 crores, while the amount locked up is Rs. 1,180.18 crores.

Announcing its ambitious `Compliance -04' plan for recovery of arrears, the Union Labour Minister, Sahib Singh Verma, told reporters here today that the objective was to ensure that every rupee due to workers, under the Employees Provident Fund, was recovered from their employers and deposited into the workers' accounts.

A separate Directorate of Recovery has been set up to oversee the exercise, aimed at closing the gap between default and recovery.

"The EPF will maintain dossiers in all large default cases and initiate coercive actions from a menu of options available to EPF available under the statute. These include attachment of bank accounts, attachment of accounts with third parties, attachment of movable and immovable properties and launch of prosecution with criminal courts," he said.

Mr. Verma has written to the Union Ministers for recovery of arrears from units under their ministries and will also meet them personally in this connection.

"The Directorate of Recovery will have recovery, demand, legal and intelligence teams that will gather information, recover dues and ensure that there is no legal hurdle in the recovery," he said.

Under the exempted category, Rs. 385.93 crores or 25.5 per cent is outstanding. Of this, Rs. 43.72 crores is `realisable', while Rs. 342.21 crores is locked up in legal cases.

In the un-exempted category, Rs. 1,125.86 crores or 74.47 per cent is outstanding. Of this, the realisable amount is Rs. 287.91 crores and Rs. 837.95 crores locked up in legal cases.

The default relating to Central public sector units is Rs. 296.97 crores, State public sector units, Rs. 339.10 crores and private sector units, Rs. 875.72 crores.

Among the States, West Bengal's arrears are Rs. 324.99 crores, followed by Maharashtra, Rs. 183.73 crores, and Tamil Nadu Rs. 120.96 crores. Delhi owes Rs. 23.05 crores and Chhattisgarh, Uttaranchal and Jharkhand, Rs.14.79 crores, Rs. 9.92 crores and Rs 25.98 crores respectively.

So far, the EPFO has attached 8,066 bank accounts to recover Rs. 86.95 crores, movable property in 530 cases for recovering Rs. 17.38 crores, 230 immovable properties to recover Rs. 5.82 crores and got the assistance of 145 persons to help recover Rs. 20.23 crores.

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