New Delhi:
Union Labor Minister Mansukh Mandavia said on Tuesday that membership of Social Security Schemes of Retirement Fund Body EPFO can now generate Universal Provident Fund Account Number (UAN) and related services.
The minister also announced a complete notification under the State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) of the six districts of Bihar – Araria, Saharsa, Aurangabad, Eastern Champaran and Gopalganj – State Insurance Corporation (ESIC), which will bring about 24,000 additional insured individuals under the Social Security Schemes of ESIC.
Speaking to media individuals, Mandvia said that the Provident Fund Organization (EPFO) of the employees has introduced the increased digital services for allocation and activation using face authentication, which mark a significant step towards contact, safe and completely digital service distribution for crores.
He said that now the employee can produce UAN directly using Aadhaar face authentication technology (fat) using Umang Mobile App.
Any employer can use the same UMANG app to generate UAN using Aadhaar face authentication technology (fat) for any new employee.
To generate UAN, an employee must open the UMANG app and follow steps on allocation and activation through facial authentication. After the base-based verification, the UAN will be sent and sent to the mobile number mentioned by SMS in the Aadhaar database.
After generating UAN, the employee can download the UAN card from the UMANG app or member portal. The advantages of the new process are the base and 100 percent verification of the user using facial authentication.
The minister further stated that the members who already have a UAN, but have not been active yet, can now easily activate their UAN through the UMANG app.
Biometric authentication using face authentication provides higher levels of traditional methods such as demographic or OTP-based authentication.
This will pave the way for a wide range of self-service options for safe verification members, eliminating the requirement of employer or regional office intervention in many future services.
In the coming days, EPFO will also promote digital life certificate through Jeevan Vaman, which is to cooperate with my young volunteers of India to provide services to pensioners at my door using face authentication technology.
In the financial year 2024-25, 1.26 crore (1,26,56,127) universal account numbers (UAN) were allocated by EPFO.
However, the minister said that only 44 lakh (44,68,236) UAN (35.30%) was activated by members during the financial year 2024-25.
He said that employers were given several reminders to activate their UAN using Aadhaar OTP to provide any benefit potentially under the future employment linked scheme using DBT (direct profit transfer).
Regarding the expansion of ESIC in Bihar, he said that at present, in Bihar, out of a total of 38 districts, 27 have been fully informed and 11 districts have been partially notified.
After the notification is issued, 33 districts will be fully informed and five districts will be partially notified.
Currently, on March 31, 2024, the total number of IP (insured) and beneficiary in Bihar is 4.5 lakh (4,50,640) and 17.48 lakh (17,48,483) respectively.
After the notification is issued, the total number of IP and beneficiaries in Bihar will increase to 4,74,786 and 18,42,169 respectively.
(This story is not edited by NDTV employees and auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
