![\"Union](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Union-minister-Mansukh-Mandaviya-chairs-a-meeting-_1778497741537.jpg\" "\\"Union")
Union minister Mansukh Mandaviya chairs a meeting of the Central Board of Trustees, EPFO, in New Delhi in Marh (@mansukhmandviya X\/File Photo)<\/p>\nOver 1,250 private trusts managing more than \u20b93.50 lakh crore life-savings of nearly 3.2 million employees will have to provide either \u201cbetter or at least equal\u201d benefits to their workers in comparison to terms offered by government-run Employees\u2019 Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), according to the new standard operating procedure (SOP).<\/p>\n
Union minister Mansukh Mandaviya chairs a meeting of the Central Board of Trustees, EPFO, in New Delhi in Marh (@mansukhmandviya X\/File Photo)<\/p>\n
\u201cNon-compliance by any private trust would result into cancellation of the exemption status,\u201d a senior official said, asking not to be named. Private or exempted establishments are companies that manage their own private provident fund (PF) trust rather than depositing employees\u2019 contributions into the central pool of EPFO. They are both public and private sector firms.<\/p>\n
The new and simplified SOP for exemption has been approved by EPFO\u2019s Central Board of Trustees (CBT) chaired by labour minister Mansukh Mandaviya, the official said. The new SOP would consolidate existing four SOPs and the exemption manual into a single comprehensive framework to reduce compliance burden and to promote ease of living, he added.<\/p>\n
The new SOP \u201creiterates and emphasises that benefits provided by an exempted establishment has to be better or at least equal to that provided by EPFO\u201d and in order to protect members, the balances of inoperative accounts and non-KYC accounts have to be transferred to EPFO along with accrued interest, the document said.<\/p>\n
The new rule also restricted private trusts to pay arbitrary interests to its members and kept the cap to a maximum of 2%. \u201cTo preserve inter-generational equity, higher interest is kept at two hundred basis points above EPFO\u2019s rate of interest,\u201d the SOP said. This provision is inserted as some of the public sector companies were seen giving as high as 30-34% interests to their employees, the official cited above said.<\/p>\n
The 133-page document not only provides a clear listing of requisite documents for grant, surrender and cancellation of exemption, but has also reduced the number of documents required for different processes of exemption. It seeks to lay down a comprehensive mechanism regarding monitoring, inspection, compliance reporting, adherence to investment norms and timely settlement of claims.<\/p>\n
The SOP also provides an end-to-end digital process for surrender and transfer of past accumulations. The technology-driven governance approach will make audit of exempted establishments more transparent and efficient, the official said. \u201cThe objective is to provide clarity and uniformity in the supervision of exempt trusts functioning under the oversight of the EPFO,\u201d the official added.<\/p>\n
In order to protect ordinary employees\u2019 interests, the SOP also made it mandatory for private trusts to have an online portal for grievance resolution, which shall be integrated with EPFO\u2019s public grievance handling system. \u201cAll grievances of stakeholders shall be routed to the exempted establishment online through EPFO\u2019s public grievance system,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis SOP marks a shift towards a technology-enabled, risk-based, and stakeholder-centric regulatory system,\u201d the document said. It encourages voluntary compliance, reduces administrative burden, enhances transparency, safeguards members\u2019 funds, and builds trust among employers, employees, and regulators, thereby supporting sustainable governance and \u2018Ease of Doing Business\u2019, it added.<\/p>\n
Some of the exempted establishments as per EPFO\u2019s August 2024 listing are \u2014 Bokaro Steel, Jindal Stainless, TVS Motor Co, Raymond Ltd, Larsen Toubro Ltd, Wipro, Infosys, Tata Tea Ltd, Reliance Industries Ltd, BHEL, Hindustan Unilever, Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd., Indian Oil Corp Ltd, Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd, and NTPC Ltd.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Over 1,250 private trusts managing more than \u20b93.50 lakh crore life-savings of nearly 3.2 million employees will have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":443983,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[72,25785,17870,176,61,60,193215,174,175,193214,17873],"class_list":["post-443982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-business","tag-employees-provident-fund-organisation","tag-epfo","tag-finance","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-new-standard-operating-procedure","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance","tag-private-trusts","tag-provident-fund"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=443982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443982\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/443983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=443982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=443982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=443982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}