There is a general impression that is being created that the government will be bringing an amendment to the Payment of Wages Act (1936) to make mandatory the payment of wages to the workers only through cheques or accounts transfers.

This is not the correct position. It has been clarified by the Labour Department that the government proposes to bring an amendment to ‘Section 6 of the Payment of Wages Act, 1936’, which will provide employers the additional option of crediting the wages in the bank account of the employees through account transfer or cheques along with the existing provisions of payment in current coin or currency notes.

The Employees' Provident Fund Organization (EPFO) is all set to streamline the Provident Fund settlement process for all members who have achieved ‘superannuation’ age. EPFO wants to make the settlement process hassle free, smooth and at a faster rate.

All companies are advised to follow the below instructions released by the EPFO:

1. Employer are expected to prepare a monthly list of retiring EPF/EPS members, three months in advance and the same would be communicated to the concerned members and their respective employers.
2. Employers have been requested to make payment of PF contributions, one month in prior to the date of retirement.
3. A complete set of ‘PF’ and ‘pension claim forms’ (that retiring employees are expected to furnish and submit) will be sent by the employer at least 14 days prior to the date of retirement, to the respective retiring employees.

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The Tamilnadu Labour Department has notified to increase its efficiency with regards to the ‘CLRA registration’ process by 30 days.

How it applies?

Every 'Principal Employer' (PE) who employs twenty or more ‘workmen’ on any day of the preceding twelve months should mandatorily apply for CLRA registration to the Labour Department of their respective states, stating the maximum number of employees to be employed.

Earlier this registration process would take 60 days, whereas the Labour Department has notified to speed-up the process to 30 days. The Tamilnadu Labour Department has notified stating that the ‘Registering Officer’ shall grant ‘Certificate of Registration’ within 30 days (earlier 60 days) from the ‘Date of Receipt’ of application.

In October 2016, a new rule was introduced under the Employee's State Insurance Scheme (ESIC) which stated the following –

In the areas where the ESIC scheme is implemented for the first time, the employer’s contribution and employee’s contribution would be as follows for the initial period of 24 months (from the day it’s been implemented):

Employer: 3% of wages payable to the employee, such sum rounded to next higher rupee.

Employee: 1% of wages payable to employee, such sum rounded to next higher rupee.

However, the ESIC department recently followed up on the previous notification stating the following, "Due to technical reasons, the above said modification in the software is taking sometime".

Thus ESIC department has informed that, employers who are eligible for the reduced rate of contribution should file monthly contribution at the rate of 1.75% for employees and 4.75% for employer but must calculate and pay actual contribution at reduced rate i.e. 1% and 3%.

These employers are advised to inform Regional/Sub Regional offices regarding their eligibility for ‘reduced rate of contribution’. This might further be examined by the Regional/Sub Regional office. Once verified and confirmed, no default action may be taken against such employers for reduced payment.

The online portal for filing PF returns by exempted and relaxed establishments would be unavailable for a (currently) unspecified period due to the revamping of Electronic cum Challan Return (ECR) portal. The EPFO is in the processing of developing a unified portal for Universal Account Number (Version 2.0) and ECR (Version 2.0).

While the portal is active, the functionality of filing of online returns for ‘Exempted Establishments’ is expected to be deployed on the ‘unified portal’ once the development and testing is completed. Till such time, the ‘exempted return’ and MIS Dashboard will not be available.

Therefore, employers of all establishments who are currently exercising ‘exemption’ and maintaining private PF trusts are requested to keep the data ready. This would be the data pertinent to the months in which ‘online return filing’ could not be done due to the non-availability of the portal. On deployment of the ‘return filing’ function, employers are expected to file the same for all such pending months.

Based on the notification published on 10th November, 2014, (under Payment of Bonus Rules), every employer was expected to send an ‘annual return’ in the amended ‘Form D’ to the Inspector. This is so that it reaches the Inspector within 30 days after the expiry of the time-limit specified in 'Section 19' of Payment of Bonus Act, 1965.

Many of the establishments had expressed their difficulty in filling/completing of a tedious, complicated and unrealistic ‘Form D’ and consequently, the issue was taken up with the authorities for its omission. As a result, the Labour Department has replaced the existing ‘Form D’ with the previous ‘Form D’ which was simple and the same needs to be submitted on or before the 1st of February, each year.

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