New Delhi, Jan 10 (KNN) In a move that would further improve ease of doing business environment for the entrepreneurs, the Employees’ Provident Fund Organization (EPFO) has moved towards the next phase in digitalization of processes by launching next version of the Electronic Challan cum Returns (ECR).

Earlier, the EPFO had released a new digitalized process for Pradhan Mantri Rojgar Protsahan Yojana (PMRPY) and Universal Account Number (UAN) 2.0.

Recently, EPFO has launched the next version of ECR.

In the new version, the EPFO has reduced the complexity of the existing process by revising the existing ECR file format and the ECR filing portal.

Previously, around 25 fields were required to be filled in order to file an ECR. The new ECR file format contains only 11 fields. It consolidates the existing ‘ECR filling portal’, ‘claim-status’ portal and ‘challan payment portal’ into one unified filing and payment portal.

The ECR (Version 2) will be a completely UAN based format so only the contribution of UAN registered employees can be uploaded.

In ECR (Version 2) the below fields have been omitted – Member ID; Employee contribution due; Employer contribution due; Employee Pension Scheme contribution due; All arrear fields and other employee information fields.

All ‘arrear related fields’ will now be a part of the new arrear file and all ‘employee information fields’ would be captured at the time of UAN generation. Furthermore, ‘UAN’ and ‘gross wages’ column have been added to the ECR.