New EPF registrations site inaccessible for 3 months

Tribune News Service

Dharamsala, April 21

The state government has made it mandatory for all the government contractors to get registered with the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO). Earlier, contractors employing more than 20 employees had to register with the EPFO, but now it has been made mandatory for every contractor.

However, the contractors who are trying to register allege that the portals of EPF registration have remained inaccessible for the past three months. The contractors allege that officials of various departments with which they are working are asking for EPF number as mandatory condition before giving them work. However, we are not being able to register it with the EPFO due to non-functioning sites. This is making us ineligible for government contracts, they say.

Employers said they were seeking registration since December but there was no solution to their problems.

For contractors it is mandatory to have registration number to apply for work tenders or to get their payments for the works they have completed. “Now, the government has made it compulsory to have registration under EPF to all contractors,” said Deepak Garg, Executive Engineer, Irrigation and Public Health Department. The state government has asked contractors of A, B, C and D categories to have EPF registration.”

Rakesh Kumar, a contractor, said this would put an extra burden on them as they were already paying labour cess and other taxes. “We are already paying income tax and other taxes. Labour cess is also being paid by us duly, but this is an extra burden as there are very few people here dealing in EPF registrations,” said Rakesh Kumar, a contractor.

Ankush Verma, an advocate dealing with such cases, said they were getting queries in their office for the past many days but it is almost impossible to get EPF registration for them. “Portals for the EPF registration are not working. Though we can file challans and returns for already registered employers but new registration is not possible,” he said.

Shivali Sondhi, one of the employers here, has filed a complaint in this regard to the Prime Minister Office also. “I had filed a complaint in this regard to Prime Minister Office. But the reply was that it was due to technical error and no time of resolution was mentioned,” he said.

The numbers displayed on the websites for EPF office were not working and there was no response of communications made to them.