What is gpf number in pension?
As per Govt. of Maharashtra FD GR dated 31st October 2005 this scheme would NOT be applicable to the government servants who are recruited on or after 1st November 2005.
Immunity has been provided by sub-section (1) of section 3 of the Provident Fund Act, 1925 against giving effect to the recovery of government dues from accumulation in the General Provident Fund account of the employee.
Constitutional provisions were made empowering the President of India to formulate the rules regulating the General Provident Fund for the central government employees and similarly powers were conferred on the Governors of the States to make the rules regulating the GPF for the state government employees.
Majority of the State Governments have entrusted the custody and maintenance of the GPF of their state to the C&AG of India who, through his field offices spread across the country, discharges this function. The Comptroller & Auditor General of India is the Head Of the Department of IA&AD and derives his powers under Article 149 of the Constitution of India as well as the C& AG’s (Duties, Power and Conditions of Service) Act 1971.
All transactions of Receipts and Payments made to and from the General Provident Fund are classified in government account under Part-III- Public Account I- Small Savings, Provident Funds etc. (b) Provident Funds-8009 State Provident Funds. This Major Head is closing to balances hence the balances under this head are carried forward from year to year in the Financial Accounts of the State government concerned.
In the State of Maharashtra the Governor of Maharashtra in exercise of the powers conferred on him by the proviso to Article 309 of the Constitution of India has made the rules regulating the General Provident Fund relating to Government Servants under the Government of Maharashtra. GPF Rules were amended from time to time and the present form of the rules are named as the Maharashtra General Provident Fund Rules, 1998
The Office of the Accountant General (A &E ) II Maharashtra, Nagpur is maintaining GPF accounts of around 80Thousand employees pertaining to Vidarbha and Marathwada regions of Maharashtra.
The GPF Account Number comprising of GPF Series and unique GPF Account Number is allotted to each GPF subscriber. The GPF series comprises Department code followed by Region code e.g. GABN, MBN, PHBN, JBN i.e. GA- General Administration, M-Medical, PH- Public Health, J- Jail etc. Here ‘BN’ code is suffixed for all GPF series allottedforGovernment servants working in Vidarbha and Marathwada regions of Maharashtra.
Sources from which transaction takes place in GPF account:
As pay & allowances of government servants are debited to the Consolidated Fund of the State and the emoluments are drawn from a government treasury /PAO, the recovery of GPF subscription shall be made from emoluments itself and when the pay & allowances are drawn from a source other than the Consolidated Fund of the state, the GPF subscription shall be credited into government account by remitting the amount into treasury through Challan or through DD drawn in favor of the “Accounts Officer” o/o the State AG who is maintaining the GPF account of the subscriber. Each Head of Office/Department has to send a statement to the Accountant General concerned in the prescribed format every month indicating the particulars of all such subscribers (except for Gr-D employees) in his office who are required to subscribe to GPF compulsorily. This statement will be in a form of GPF Schedule prepared in ascending order of GPF a/c number allotted to each Subscriber. (Guidelines given in subsequent paragraphs)
GPF, short for General Provident Fund, is a type of PPF (Public Provident Fund) account that is available only for government employees in India.
As per Govt. of Maharashtra FD GR dated 31st October 2005 this scheme would NOT be applicable to the government servants who are recruited on or after 1st November 2005.
Immunity has been provided by sub-section (1) of section 3 of the Provident Fund Act, 1925 against giving effect to the recovery of government dues from accumulation in the General Provident Fund account of the employee.
Constitutional provisions were made empowering the President of India to formulate the rules regulating the General Provident Fund for the central government employees and similarly powers were conferred on the Governors of the States to make the rules regulating the GPF for the state government employees.
Majority of the State Governments have entrusted the custody and maintenance of the GPF of their state to the C&AG of India who, through his field offices spread across the country, discharges this function. The Comptroller & Auditor General of India is the Head Of the Department of IA&AD and derives his powers under Article 149 of the Constitution of India as well as the C& AG’s (Duties, Power and Conditions of Service) Act 1971.
All transactions of Receipts and Payments made to and from the General Provident Fund are classified in government account under Part-III- Public Account I- Small Savings, Provident Funds etc. (b) Provident Funds-8009 State Provident Funds. This Major Head is closing to balances hence the balances under this head are carried forward from year to year in the Financial Accounts of the State government concerned.
In the State of Maharashtra the Governor of Maharashtra in exercise of the powers conferred on him by the proviso to Article 309 of the Constitution of India has made the rules regulating the General Provident Fund relating to Government Servants under the Government of Maharashtra. GPF Rules were amended from time to time and the present form of the rules are named as the Maharashtra General Provident Fund Rules, 1998
The Office of the Accountant General (A &E ) II Maharashtra, Nagpur is maintaining GPF accounts of around 80Thousand employees pertaining to Vidarbha and Marathwada regions of Maharashtra.
The GPF Account Number comprising of GPF Series and unique GPF Account Number is allotted to each GPF subscriber. The GPF series comprises Department code followed by Region code e.g. GABN, MBN, PHBN, JBN i.e. GA- General Administration, M-Medical, PH- Public Health, J- Jail etc. Here ‘BN’ code is suffixed for all GPF series allottedforGovernment servants working in Vidarbha and Marathwada regions of Maharashtra.
GPF or General Provident Fund is a savings scheme available to government employees. EPF or Employees’ Provident Fund is a savings scheme available to employees in companies with more than 20 workers. PPF or Public Provident Fund is available to everyone – whether employed, self-employed or unemployed.
A provident fund is basically a saving scheme designed to build a reliable retirement corpus in the form of a lump-sum amount at the time of retirement. Provident fund essentially provides financial security to elderly people.
EPF is available to salaried people in the organised sector and contributions to the fund are made by both the employee and the employer. In some cases, even the state makes some contribution to the fund. However, there are also some provident funds in which people having a business income can invest such as PPF. GPF, on the other hand, is only available to government servants.
The investment in these provident funds (EPF, GPF, and PPF) is a relatively low risk due to their government or statutory backing. Out of the three funds, the government directly pays interest on GPF and PPF. In the case of EPF, the interest rate depends on the returns generated by the EPF. The EPF rate is 8.15% while the PPF and the GPF rates are both 7.1%. Tax deduction under Section 80 C is available for EPF, PPF, and GPF. The interest on all three investments is tax-free.
GPF is exclusively available for government sector employees. Individuals employed with the Government of India contribute a minimum of 6% of their salary and are entitled to the accumulated funds at the time of the superannuation or retirement. The current rate of interest on GPF is 7.1%
All the temporary government servants after a continuous service of one year, all permanent government servants, and all re-employed pensioners (other than those eligible for Contributory Provident Fund) are mandatorily required to subscribe to the GPF.
GPF is managed by the Department of Pension and Pensioner’s Welfare under the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances, and Pensions.
At the time of a GPF subscription, the subscriber can nominate one or more than one person, conferring them the right to claim for the fund in case of the death of the GPF holder.
The interest rate on the GPF funds is revised by the government from time to time depending on the prevailing market interest rate. As per the latest notification, the government has decreased the rate of interest on GPF by 0.8%.
The amount of subscriptions for the GPF is fixed by the subscriber himself. However, the contribution rate should not be less than 6% of the total emoluments of the employee. The maximum contribution is 100% of the employee’s salary.
GPF has provisions for refundable advances from the fund on various but pre-defined grounds including education, medical emergency, marriage, and for buying a house or consumer durables.
The GPF subscriber can get up to 12 months of pay or three-fourths of the GPF balance, whichever is less. However, the sanctioning authority can allow withdrawing 90% of the balance under some special circumstances.
The sanctioning authority must sanction and credit the qualified advance within fifteen days of the date on which such request is raised. There is no requirement for documentary proof to be furnished by the subscriber in order to raise a claim for GPF advance. The amount borrowed has to be repaid. It can be repaid in a maximum of 60 months’ installments.
It should be noted that there is no interest charged on the GPF advance and the account holder can make multiple claims for GPF advances in his career. If you are already repaying a GPF advance then also you can make a request for a fresh advance.
However, if the advance is granted before complete repayment of the earlier advance, the outstanding amount will be added to the new advance, and installments for recovery refixed with reference to the consolidated amount.
Contributions to GPF are exempt from tax. The interest rate on GPF is also exempt from tax.
EPF is the government-backed saving scheme that provides a social security net to the employees working in the organized sector. Any organization having 20 or more employees is mandated to be registered under the EPF scheme and provide its benefits to its employees. EPF is managed by the Employees’ Provident Fund Organization (EPFO) under the Employees’ Provident Fund and Misc. Provisions Act, 1952.
Apart from the long-term retirement corpus, an EPF member is also entitled to a pension under the Employees’ Pension Scheme (EPS). If the member has completed 10 years of cumulative service under the EPF registered organizations, he will be eligible for EPS.
Employees enrolled under the EPF need to contribute 12% of their basic salary (up to Rs. 15,000) towards the EPF fund and an equal contribution is made by the employer on a monthly basis. The contribution made by the employer is divided into different parts. Out of the 12% contributed by the employer, 8.33% gets credited to EPS and the rest (3.67%) goes to EPF.
The interest rate on the EPF fund is decided by the government time to time which is currently fixed at 8.15%. Also, the EPF contributions along with the interest income are tax exempted at every stage.
Every member who registers with EPFO is assigned a 12 digit Universal Account Number (UAN) which is linked to all of the PF accounts of the member. The EPF member can access his EPF account using the EPF e-Sewa member portal and also update KYC, raise claims for EPF withdrawal/ settlement and know the status of the claims raised earlier.
Generally, one can withdraw the EPF corpus on retirement at the age of 58. However, EPFO allows the EPF member to withdraw the funds partially on various grounds like in case of unemployment, medical emergency, education, marriage, etc. For example, the EPF member can withdraw 75% of the EPF corpus if he remains unemployed for one month and can make a full and final settlement (100% of corpus) after two months or more unemployment.
One can even withdraw or transfer the PF balance online using the UAN e-Sewa member portal.
PPF is again a government-guaranteed long-term-saving-cum-tax-saving provident fund which was launched way back in 1968 under the Public Provident Fund Act, 1968. However, unlike the GPF and EPF, PPF can be subscribed by both salaried as well as self-employed individuals having a business income.
Also, it should be noted that enrolling under PPF is completely a voluntary decision of the subscriber while the subscription under EPF and GPF is mandatory for the eligible employee. PPF is managed by the Department of Economic Affairs under the Ministry of Finance.
Only the investor (not employer) makes contributions towards PPF. One can start with a minimum investment of Rs. 500 and go up to Rs.1.5 lakh annually in order to avail tax benefits under Section 80C of the Income Tax Act, 1961. One can make contributions to PPF as in lump-sum or in a maximum of 12 installments per year.
PPF comes under the EEE (Exempt-Exempt-Exempt) category of tax in which the principal amount, interest earned, and maturity amount, all are exempt from taxes.
Again, the interest rate provided on the PPF funds is decided by the government which is currently fixed at 7.1%. The interest is calculated on the lowest balance between the 1st and 5th of every month. Therefore, one should ideally make contributions before the 5th of the month towards his PPF account.
The maturity period of the PPF deposits is 15 years which is also known as the lock-in period. However, the government has allowed for premature closure of the PPF account in certain predefined circumstances such as serious ailment (medical grounds) or for the higher education of children. The withdrawer needs to forgo 1% of the interest earned on deposits as a penalty for premature closure of the PPF account.
