Mills' Association urges EPFO to revert to old way of generating UAN

Time of India

6 days ago

Coimbatore: The Southern India Mills' Association (SIMA) has urged the Employees' Provident Fund Organization (
EPFO
) to withdraw its recent circular mandating the allotment and activation of Universal Account Numbers (UANs) exclusively through the UMANG application, citing technical glitches and operational delays.
In a circular dated July 30, the EPFO mandates that UAN allotment and activation must be done through the UMANG app using facial authentication technology.
In a letter to Central Provident Fund Commissioner Neelam Shami Rao, SIMA secretary general K Selvaraju said the member mills were facing significant difficulties since the new mandate was enforced. According to him, the app frequently crashes, logs out users, displays server errors and fails to map existing UANs for employees who previously worked elsewhere.
"These issues have led to severe delays in UAN generation, creating a backlog of applications and hampering day-to-day operations. Employers were neither given any time nor adequate sensitization before the circular came into effect," Selvaraju said.
SIMA has requested the EPFO to revert to the previous system-based UAN generation process until the UMANG app's technical problems are resolved, and to conduct awareness programmes before introducing such changes.
The association, which represents more than 1,500 textile mills and the entire textile value chain in South India, has also shot off a letter to the Union labour and employment ministry in this regard.
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