Labour ministry to return unclaimed deposits back to EPFO subscribers
Feb 23, 2026
Synopsis
The Ministry of Labour and Employment will return unclaimed EPF deposits to over 3.1 million subscribers, with a pilot phase benefiting 0.7 million soon. A merit-based scholarship of up to Rs 25,000 will also be added to the labour welfare scheme for unorganised workers' children, enhancing educational equity.
The ministry of labour and employment will return the unclaimed deposits in inoperative accounts of the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation to its subscribers, an exercise aimed at benefiting over 3.1 million subscribers with 0.7 million subscribers benefiting in the first and pilot phase to be rolled out soon, labour minister Mansukh Mandaviya said.
A decision to this effect was taken at the weekly review meeting of the ministry, taken by minister Mandaviya, on Monday.
EPFO has an estimated 31.86 lakh inoperative accounts totalling to Rs 10,903 crore. Of this approximately 7.11 lakh accounts have unclaimed amount ranging up to Rs 1000 and amounting to Rs 30.52 crore.
As per the ministry, some of these accounts are as old as 20 years in which no transaction has been made in the last three years, rendering them inoperative.
The 0.7 million accounts identified for the pilot phase have their Aadhar-seeded with the bank accounts and the details are available with EPFO making it possible for the retirement fund body to credit their dues back into their accounts.
As per the EPF & MP Act, EPFO beneficiary has to file claims for withdrawing their corpus. However, it has been observed that in large number of cases the corpus is miniscule compared to the paper work needed to claim the money, resulting in piling up of unclaimed deposits and inoperative accounts with EPFO.
Merit-based scholarship
The labour minister also said that the government's labour welfare scheme for education of children of unorganised workers will now be topped up with merit-based scholarship of up to Rs 25,000, over and above the welfare based scholarship financial assistance for education to the wards of unorganised workers in select sectors.
"In order to enhance equity, remove unintended exclusions and ensure policy clarity, the ministry is amending the scheme guidelines to allow a student who is availing the ministry’s welfare-based scholarship to also receive a merit-based scholarship from any central or state government agency, wherever eligible," labour ministry said in a statement.
This year, the ministry said, 0.16 million candidates have so far availed the welfare based financial assistance amounting to Rs 77.9 crore compared to 92,118 beneficiaries in 2024-25 with benefits amounting to Rs 31.65 crore.
The initiative is fully aligned with the objectives of the Code on Social Security, 2020, which envisages comprehensive social security and welfare measures—including education—for unorganised workers and their families, the ministry added.
[The Economic Times]
