EMPLOYEES OF TOP 3 MAJOR IT COMPANIES AVAIL MAXIMUM EPF ADVANCES- REPORT! 

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic and crisis, data shared by the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has revealed that employees working with major IT companies have availed the maximum EPF advances under COVID-19 window.

With the on-going crisis, EPFO offered members the opportunity to avail advance not exceeding three months’ basic wages and dearness allowances or up to 75 percent of the amount standing to the credit of their respective accounts. 

After this news went viral, more than 33,000 employees at TCS availed the advances amounting to a total of Rs 1.5 crore from their EPF accumulations in the April-July period. Even, HCL Technologies and Infosys utlilised most of their EPF accumulations in their respective months and period. 

As per the EPFO data, it revealed that out of the top five private companies three belong to the IT (information technology) sector - Infosys, TCS and HCL, who have availed of the coronavirus advance benefit. In total, their employees constitute around 17 percent for advances settled during the April-June period.

Looking into the list, TCS topped the chart followed by HDFC Bank (12,921), HCL (11,957), Infosys (5,534) and Maruti (2,146). 

Meanwhile, a handful of exempt establishments manage the PF accounts of their employees while remaining are under the administrative control of the EPFO. An approximate Rs 50,000 crore corpus is managed by around 1,550 establishments belonging to public, private, and co-operative sectors, Financial Express reported. 

A total of 3,04,681 EPFO members from 685 establishments have availed the EPF facility to pull out Rs 3,128 crore from their accumulations in April-July.