Rayon Dsouza

The Ministry of Labour and Employment has announced the Employees’ Enrolment Campaign (EEC) 2025, a major initiative to expand the reach of India’s social security system. This campaign, operational from 1st   November 2025, to 30 April  2026, encourages employers to voluntarily register and declare employees under the Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) who may have been left out earlier. 🏛️ Purpose of EEC 2025 The Employees’ Enrolment Campaign 2025 aims to  - Bring more workers under organized social security coverage through EPFO - Allow employers to regularize past non-enrolments without heavy penalties. - Promote ease of doing business by simplifying compliance. This initiative follows the success of a similar campaign in 2017, which helped lakhs of employees get formal social security benefits. 👷‍♀️ Who Can Be Enrolled Employers can declare and enroll employees who: Joined between 1st July 2017, and 31st October 2025, Are still employed a...

What’s New in EPFO Reforms (2025) 1. Simplified Partial Withdrawal System - Earlier: 13 separate withdrawal types. - Now: Merged into 3 simple categories — faster and easier processing. 2. Shorter Partial Withdrawal Eligibility Period - Earlier: Minimum service period for withdrawal was up to 7 years. - Now: Only 1 year of service required for all withdrawal types. 3. Higher Partial Withdrawal Limit. - Earlier: Could withdraw only employee share + interest (50–100%). - Now: Can withdraw 75% of total amount (including employer share + employee share + interest). 4. Protection of Retirement Corpus. - Must retain 25% in account to build minimum savings for retirement and benefit from compounding (8.25% interest). 5.  EPF Final Withdrawal in case of Unemployment. - Earlier: Full PF accumulation withdrawal after 2 months of unemployment. - Now:  75% can be withdrawn anytime without documentation. Remaining 25% can be withdrawn after One year of Unemployment. - F...

The Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has officially launched its Re-Engineered Electronic Challan-cum-Return (ECR) system starting from the September 2025 wage month . This marks one of the biggest overhauls in EPF return filing in recent years, aimed at improving accuracy, transparency, and speed in monthly compliance. The change is not just technical it reshapes how employers file, validate, and pay their provident fund contributions. 🔹 What Has Changed in the New System The earlier ECR system combined data filing and payment in a single step. In the re-engineered version, these are handled separately giving employers better control but also stricter compliance checks. Key upgrades include: Separate Stages for Filing and Payment Employers now upload and validate the return first. Once it’s approved, a Temporary Return Reference Number (TRRN) is generated for challan payment. This allows errors to be fixed before money is transferred. Three Ty...