Universal provident fund scheme: How PF for gig workers, self-employed could work & why it would be a game-changer

The Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) is designing a universal provident fund scheme to extend social security coverage to unorganised sector workers, gig workers, and the self-employed.

Workers would be allowed to contribute daily to annually, with savings earning an annual interest rate from EPFO.

The scheme offers tax benefits similar to existing EPFO: contributions up to Rs 2.5 lakh annually are tax-exempt under EEE (Exempt, Exempt, Exempt).

A key change is the withdrawal mechanism: subscribers may retain their corpus with EPFO even after retirement, a facility that may also be extended to existing EPFO subscribers.

The government has already mandated that platforms like taxi aggregators and food delivery apps register all their workers on a dedicated portal.