Retirement fund body the Employees provident Fund Organsiation has further eased compliance for employers by allowing them to use emails to obtain electronic signatures in case they are facing difficulties in using digital or Aadhaar based e-sign.
“In the current scenario of lockdown announced by the government to control the spread of COVID-19 pandemic and other disruptions, the employers are not able to function normally and are facing problems in using their digital signatures or Aadhaar based e-sign on EPFO portal,” EPFO said in a statement on Wednesday.
“Keeping in view the above situation and to further ease the compliance procedure, EPFO has decided to accept such requests through email also,” it added.
Many important tasks like KYC attestation, transfer claim attestation etc are being done online by the authorized persons of employers using their digital signatures (DSC) or Aadhar based e-Signs on EPFO portal. However, they require a one time approval from regional Offices for this.
EPFO is of the view that due to lockdown, many employers are facing difficulties to send the one time registration requests to the regional offices in the existing scenario.
Hence, employer can send the scanned copy of duly signed request letter to the concerned regional office through mail from now onwards.
“This facility provides further relief to the employers and EPF members adversely impacted by the pandemic,” EPFO added.