More than Rs 6 lakhs of EPF feared swindled
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, December 27 2011: A sum of Rs 6,70,443 released by the Finance Department for payment of Employees' Provident Fund (EPF) to 21 employees of the Manipur Pollution Control Board (MPCB) is suspected to have been misappropriated.

A reliable source informed that the MPCB Secretary entitled the 21 employees to EPF since March 1, 1999 .

Form-9 and other necessary documents for the 21 employees were submitted to EPF Organisation, Guwahati, Ministry of Labour on February 11, 2004 .

Starting from the month they were entitled to EPF, certain percentages were deducted from the monthly salaries of the 21 employees and deposited as EPF.

In the meantime, the Assistant EPF Commissioner (Complaints) of the Guwahati based EPF organisation sent a letter to the MPCB Member Secretary on May 22, 2006 stating that all employees should join the EPF provision from October 1, 1996 as per the EPF & MP Act.

The same letter informed that the employees should join the EPF by October 1, 1996.It said that EPF accounts for the 21 employees could not be processed as the employer's share was not deposited.

The same letter disclosed that EPF employer's share of Rs 6,70,443 for October 1996 to December 2008 was sanctioned by the Forest and Environment Secretariat, Government of Manipur on March 27, 2009 .

The sanctioned amount of Rs 6,70,443 was deposited in major head 8449 of the Environment and Ecology Wing.

An order to release the sanctioned amount was issued by the Under Secretary (FR), Government of Manipur on March 31, 2010 .

Even as the order for releasing the EPF was issued, annual account statements of the 21 employees have not submitted to the relevant authority till date.

Of these 21 employees, one had already expired while another had retired.

Yet all of them have not been getting the EPF benefit.

Based on difference in their basic bay, the employees deposited Rs 500 to Rs 700 per month out of their salaries.

On the other hand, MPCB employees have not been getting their salaries since the month of August this year on account of delay on the part of the Environment and Ecology Wing in releasing requisite fund.

For not depositing the employer's share of EPF from October 1996 to December 2008 and for not paying employees' salaries in time, the MPCB may face criminal in addition to heavy financial penalty as per the RPF & MP Act 1952, added the source.

Comment