The Employees' Provident Fund Organisation portal has reportedly been down for several weeks, drawing criticism from former IAS officer and activist Kannan Gopinathan.
Expressing his frustration in a social media post, Gopinathan accused the authorities of holding people's hard-earned money as “ransom” due to their unresolved technical issues.
Gopinathan, who resigned from the civil service in protest against restrictions in Jammu and Kashmir post-Article 370 abrogation, tagged Union Labour Minister Mansukh Mandaviya in his post, urging him to take note of the situation.
“Dear Minister @mansukhmandviya, hopefully you're aware that the EPFO portal is down for weeks now," he said in a post on X.
He further alleged that people's “hard-earned money” was being “held as ransom” due to a “software update". “Utter incompetence that you're not able to resolve it for this long!" he added.
He also attached a screenshot of the Unified Member Portal, which displayed a “service unavailable” message.
Dear Minister @mansukhmandviya, hopefully you're aware that the EPFO portal is down for weeks now.
March 6, 2025
Hard earned money of people being held as ransom to some stupid software update.
And utter incompetence that you're not able to resolve it for this long! @socialepfo pic.twitter.com/xauENQs3lQThe error message cited, “maintenance downtime or capacity problems” as the reason for the disruption on the website, asking users to try again later. However, no official clarification or estimated resolution timeline has been provided by EPFO.
Gopinathan's post quickly gained traction, with many users sharing their difficulties in accessing EPF services.
“Crores of Indians have their hard-earned money sitting in PF. Most of the time, the portal doesn't work, and these folks reject the transfer/claim randomly. There is no way to reach out to them other than paying sizeable bribe via agents or just rant in social media!” one user claimed.
@PMOIndia @narendramodi how long public will suffer because of incompetent officers in @socialepfo ? They just don't care!
March 7, 2025
Crores of Indian have their hard earned money sitting in PF. Most of the times the portal doesn't work and these folks reject the transfer / claim randomly.…There were a few sarcastic comments as well. While one user wrote, “Don't think it is bug. It is feature to delay the payout to citizens,” another stated that even after the EPFO website is restored, users will face persistent issues like “father's name mismatch".
Don't think it is bug.
March 6, 2025
It is feature to delay the payout to citizensOnce the website up, “Father's name mismatch” will make a grand comeback. The EPFO website is just a front, but shhh… India is sleeping.
March 6, 2025One user also criticised the frequent password expirations and a frustrating reset process.
And we want to compete with deepseek. Every 3 months they will expire your password and when you change it takes ages to reset with delay in otp, server issue etc
March 6, 2025Kannan Gopinathan's post comes at a time when the government has been pushing for digitisation in the EPF. The Employees' Provident Fund Organisation recently introduced a major update to its regulations, allowing EPFO members to modify their Aadhaar-linked Universal Account Number details, without the need to submit supporting documents. This change is expected to reduce the time required for profile updates.
Established in 1952 under the Employees' Provident Fund and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, the EPFO is responsible for managing and regulating provident fund accounts in India. The Unified Member Portal serves as a digital platform for employers and employees to access EPF-related services.
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