Aadhaar link to PF accounts must

​Hyderabad: Union Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya on Monday said that the government would make it mandatory to link all the PF accounts with bank accounts and Aadhaar card.

Addressing a press conference here at the EPFO regional office in the city, Dattatreya said that there are 4.30 crore members in the EPF and already 2 crore have linked their bank accounts and Aadhaar cards to their account numbers.

He said government would issue a notification for linking of four crore regular and 50 lakh pension accounts.

The minister informed that the Amnesty scheme brought out by the ministry has helped in enrolling 1,000 new units under the ESIC.

He said that over 10,000 IPs (Insured Persons) would be getting benefit under the ESIC with addition of 1,000 companies.

The Centre had brought amnesty scheme so as to give a chance to the companies to enroll the staff under the ESIC scheme and 1,000 companies registered taking advantage of the scheme.

Stating that the demonetisation would be a success, Dattatreya said that the second part of the economic reform would be to act on the benami transactions.

He said that the Centre had recently passed Benami Transaction Act, which would be implemented soon. “This Act was brought by Congress party many years ago but it did not pass the bill.

There were no policy decisions during the Congress rule and there was economic bankruptcy in the country. The step taken by the Modi government was to strengthen the economy,” said Dattatreya.

He said that the success achieved by the maximum cashless transactions were Jan Dhan accounts, Aadhaar and Mobiles (JAM).

The minister informed that the Centre has also issued ordinance on the Payment of Wages Act. All payments would have to be made through bank accounts from now onwards, he said adding that a bill would be brought in the next session of Parliament.