"All regional offices and sub-regional offices should sensitise the employers under their respective jurisdiction to comply with the provision of Para 72(5) of the EPF Scheme 1952 where the employer is duty bound to forward duly filled in and attested claim application to the respective EPF office within five days of receipt," says a circular of EPFO.

"It is observed that some employers do not forward the claims submitted to them by their outgoing employees. This leads to harassment of such outgoing employees and give rise to lodging of grievances with EPFO," it added.

The Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), which manages a subscriber base of over five crore and a corpus of about Rs 5 lakh crore, has been working hard to reduce the number of public grievances and improve services delivery.

"It may be made clear to all employers under your jurisdiction that failure to comply with provisions as contained in the Para 72(5) will invite penal action as provided under the Act and Schemes. Wide publicity of these provisions and duty of employers may be given through seminars, meetings, press notes etc," the directive said.

The body had recently asked its field staff to settle all grievance of subscribers within 30 days.

EPFO has also started online settlement of PF transfer claims on changing jobs by members. The EPFO expects 1.2 crore claims in 2013-14, including around 13 lakh PF transfer claims.

During 2012-13, the EPFO settled 107.62 lakh claims, 88 per cent of which were processed within 30 days, as prescribed in the EPF Scheme 1952.

PTI