Byju’s deposits Rs 39 crore with EPFO despite claiming ‘no pending provident fund dues’

Edtech Unicorn Byju’s, which has been in news recently for not depositing provident fund (PF) amount deducted from the salaries of the employees, has now deposited Rs 39 crore with the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), according to reports.    

As per the data available with the EPFO, the troubled edtech major made a payment worth Rs 39.05 crore between June 26 and June 29, 2023, towards the pending EPF dues, reports revealed.

However, earlier this week, a company spokesperson had clarified and confirmed that there were no pending PF dues towards any of its employees.

The company paid a total of Rs 37.79 crore in fourteen transactions to pay EPFs pending for nine months, the reports mentioned.

Byju’s made another transaction or payment on June 29, 2023, as per the EPFO data, which was updated on Wednesday, July 5.

The edtech giant reportedly delayed EPF payments for almost nine months, which means starting October 2022, which was in violation of the EPF Act 1952.

As per the EPFO rules, a company is mandated to deposit the provident fund money of employees for that month by the 15th day of the next month.

Any delay in depositing the PF amount deducted from the salary of an employee makes the company liable to pay penalty charges ranging from 5 to 100 per cent of the actual pending amount.

Allegations of delay in EPF payment

Many of the employees recently alleged that Byju’s did not deposit the PF amount to their EPFO accounts while a few former employees of the organisation shared the screenshots of their EPF accounts on social media.

The EPFO data showed that the edtech startup was not in compliance with the monthly deposits and the company did not pay PF money for the majority of its employees in FY 24. Only 31 employees received the PF money for the month of May while over 3,100 employees got the amount for April after much delay, according to reports. The PF contributions for the months of December 2022 and January to March 2023 were deposited with EPFO on June 19. However, all employees did not receive their deducted amounts.

The EPFO data also showed that the employees of the company were paid their PF sums due for 2020 in June 2023.