Approved Transfer Policy for Group ‘C’ Cadres in EPFO 2025
कर्मचारी भविष्य निधि संगठन
Employees Provident Fund Organisation
श्रम एवं रोजगार मंत्रालय, भारत सरकार
MINISTRY OF LABOUR & EMPLOYMENT, GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
मुख्यकार्यालय/ HEAD OFFICE
No. HRD-I/87/2024/TransferPolicyReview/Misc/1227
Date:- 30.01.2025
To,
All ACC (HQ)/ Director (PDNASS)/
ACC Zones & Head Office/
All RPFCs-in-charge of Regional Offices/
Zonal Training Institutes
Sub: – Transfer Policy for Group ‘C’ Cadres in EPFO 2025- reg.
Sir/Madam,
The approved Transfer Policy for Group ‘C’ Cadres in EPFO, 2025 is hereby placed in public domain and thus notified for information of all.
(This issues with the approval of the Competent Authority)
Yours faithfully
Enclosures: As above.
(Saurabh Tripathi)
Regional P.F. Commissioner-I (HRD-I)
Transfer Policy for Group C Cadres in EPFO, 2025
1. Introduction & outline
1.1. This policy may be called “Transfer Policy for Group C Cadres of EPFO, 2025” hereinafter, referred to as TP-GC 2025.
1.2. This policy supersedes the existing guidelines for transfer or rotation or Inter Regional (State) Transfer for the cadre of SSA and other Group C as amended from time to time.
1.3. TP-GC 2025 shall be applicable to all MTS, LDC, UDC, Social Security Assistants (SSA) including the Senior Social Security Assistants (SSSA).
1.4. All LDC, UDC, SSA/ SSSA are liable to serve anywhere in the respective States to which they are appointed.
1.5. The Nature of work of SSA/Sr. SSA cadre can broadly be categorised into Three Distinct Categories: Accounts & Pension, General Administration and Compliance & Recovery.
1.6. All posts are divided into two categories – Sensitive and Non-Sensitive, as per CVC guidelines of 1999 (as amended from time to time). The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) guidelines of rotation on sensitive posts shall be strictly observed.
1.7. Place of posting of an official will be called Duty Office. Duty Office is an independent posting unit like Regional Office, District Office, Zonal Office, Head Office, Training Centre.
1.8. All transfer and postings of Group C Cadre shall be effected by the Competent Authority in accordance with the instant TP-GC 2025. The Competent Authority will be advised by the recommendatory body called “Group C Transfer Committee” (GC-TC).
1.9. ACC (HQ)/ ACC Zone (In Charge of State) before undertaking the exercise stated above shall fix the number of SSA/SSSA for each office on the basis of available workforce in his State and distribute proportionately as per sanctioned strength of each office.
1.10. An official due for transfer or desirous of making request may give choice of 5 duty offices, and such options shall be received through HR Soft or any other method prescribed.
1.11. Intra-State request transfers shall normally be considered at the time of Annual General Transfers (AGT) along with Annual Rotational Transfers. All officials can request for premature transfer during AGT.
1.12. During first 9 years, a Group C official should not be considered for deputation except it can be allowed after 06 years’ service on spouse grounds. Deputation should generally be encouraged and shall be denied only in the case where shortage in the grade is more than 30% of the sanctioned posts. Zonal Office should have proportionate officials in each grade amongst regional offices in the Zone. And thus, Donor office should be proportionately compensated if its strength is proportionately less.
1.13. All periods spent on deputation, foreign assignment or study leave shall not be counted for the purpose of tenure.
1.14. Composite Transfer Grant, Joining Time and other benefits pursuant to request transfer shall not be admissible in all cases of intra-state and inter-state request transfers. However, in cases where request is made against transfer done on administrative ground and such request is acceded to after two years of continuous service, then CTG and other benefits will be allowed.
1.15. A SSA/SSSA transferred as per the GC-TC norms on Inter State Transfer basis shall be eligible to apply for the various Limited Departmental Competitive Examinations in the various cadres only in his/her parent State where he/she holds his /her seniority/ lien.
1.16. While disposing request cases, Transfer Committee would consider DOPT instructions on:
1.16.1. Posting of spouses/ Persons with Disability etc: Posting of spouses and persons with Disability / Persons who are caregivers of Disabled Dependents etc shall be regulated as per extant guidelines issued by DoPT, Government of India.
1.16.2. The norms for transfer in respect of Officers due to retire within two years to the extent administratively feasible shall be guided by the norms of DoP&T.
1.16.3. Tenure of posting in J&K, North-Eastern Region (NER) and Andaman & Nicobar Islands shall be guided by the policy of Government of India on transfer and tenure for such places.
2. The Competent Authority
2.1. The Competent Authority for considering applications for transfer, placement or overstay and effecting all transfers and placement or disposing such application from an SSA shall be as under:
| S.N. | Authority | Extent of description of power |
| 1. | Additional Central Provident Fund Commissioner (HQ)(HR) | For Inter State Transfers of Group C on administrative grounds, request basis, including mutual requests |
| 2. | ACC (HQ)/ACC Zone (In Charge of State) | For all MTS, LDC, UDC, SSA/SSSAs within the State / Zone. |
| 3. | RPFC (OIC) Regional Office | Rotation transfer of MTS, LDC, UDC SSA/SSSAs within the jurisdiction of the office including District Office as per norms of TP-GC 2025 only. |
* In respect of North East Region, this shall refer to the ACC(Zone) of NER and for the rest, the same shall refer to the ACC(Zone) who is in Charge of the Political State concerned.
The recommendation of GC-TC shall be placed before the Competent Authority for consideration for transfers.
2.2. Notwithstanding the above, CPFC shall have full powers for transfer, rotation and Inter-State Transfer of any Group C.
2.3. The GC-TC will be a Three Member Committee at the various levels comprising as follows:
2.3.1. At HQ Level: – ACC (HR), ACC nominated by CPFC and the RPFC-I (HR) as Convenor of the Committee.
2.3.2. Muti-Zone State: – In case of Multi Zone State, it will comprise of ACCs of the Zone, senior-most RPFC-I in Regional Offices under jurisdiction of the Zone and RPFC-I looking after HR matters in Zone.
2.3.3. At Zonal Level – RPFC-I in the Zone looking after HR matters would be the convenor and the two Seniormost RC-I amongst the Regional Offices situated within State/Zone. However, Zonal ACC(HQ)/Zonal ACC can nominate any other RC-I/RC-II in place of the seniormost RCI if RC-Is are not available.
2.3.4. At Regional Level: – Internal Rotation Committee (IRC) – 3-member committee consisting of RPFC/APFC (Admin) and other RPFC-II/APFCs and if unavailable senior EO/AO of the office nominated by the OIC.
2.4. GC-TC would also make recommendations for Inter-State transfers at Regional, Zonal and HQ level.
3. Schedule for transfers
3.1. All Inter-State transfers, including mutual transfers shall be carried out before Annual General Transfers as per Schedule given below:
| S.N. | Schedule of Activity | Timelines |
| 1 | Preferring request for inter-state transfer. Request for mutual transfers should be in pairs | 01 – 15 October |
| 2 | Scrutiny of requests | 16th October – 15th November |
| 3 | Disposal of requests & issuing of order | On or before 30th November |
| 4 | Online Grievance representation | By 5th December |
| 5 | Recommendation of Grievance Committee | By 20th December |
| 6 | Disposal of grievances | On or before 31st December |
3.2. Time schedule for various procedures/actions related to the Annual General Transfer shall be as prescribed in the Table below.:
| Date | Exercise |
| December 1-31 | Preparatory work and calling of options |
| January 1 -15 | Submission of Options. 15th January shall be last date for submission of options |
| January 16 –February 15 | GC-TC to prepare the panel and submit recommendations to Competent Authority |
| February 28 | Final Order for AGT to be issued. |
| March 01-05 | Online grievance representation by those aggrieved by order of AGT. |
| March 06-10 | Compilation of Grievances by respective HRM and forwarding to Grievance Committee |
| March 11-20 | Recommendations and comments of the Grievance Committee to the Competent Authority |
| March 21-30 | Disposal of grievance representation by Competent Authority with reasons. |
| March 31 | Finalization of AGT. Date of issue of order for any changes. |
| April 30 | Permissible last Date for joining and end of AGT cycle |
Note 1: Reference to a date in this table shall be taken as the next working day in case the indicated date happens to be a public holiday or a weekend.
Ordinarily above schedule be strictly followed and barring extraordinary situations, AGT transfer order shall be issued latest by 30th April of concerned AGT cycle.
Record Date under this policy for calculation of service and eligibility shall be 1st May of the Transfer Year (AGT Cycle Year).
4. Rules governing transfer in Cadre of SSA
4.1. Primary consideration behind these transfers would be administrative efficiency and requirement.
4.2. Each Year before AGT, Zonal Office will evaluate in position strength in respect of each offices vis-à-vis in-position strength cumulatively in zone and identify deficient and surplus regions based on proportionate analysis.
4.3. Norms for transfer:
4.3.1. One tenure would be two years.
4.3.2. An official in this category would be due for transfer from a duty office after continuous 05 tenures (10 years) in that duty office. However, such officials would ordinarily not be due for transfer who are due to retire within 02 years.
4.3.3. Transfer would be made from surplus region to deficient region from panel of officials due for transfer.
4.3.4. Panel of officials would be prepared in decreasing order of period of their stay in a duty office and all those officials with higher tenure at duty office will be transferred from surplus regions to deficient regions.
4.3.5. A minimum of three years cooling off will be observed for that official posted to deficient region and after three years he can again request for prior duty office.
4.4. Norms for rotation for all Group C officials
4.4.1. In an office, an official will be rotated every two years.
4.4.2. Not more than three continuous tenures in Accounts and not more than two continuous tenures in Compliance and Administration are allowed.
4.4.3. Within these sections, internal rotation is to be carried out each two years. However, official can be rotated from Accounts to Compliance and Administration and vice-versa.
4.4.4. As far as feasible, all efforts should be taken to ensure that same establishment is not assigned/ mapped upon rotation of an official from one account group to another. Similarly, internal rotation within compliance and administration will be done even if same official is posted in that section. Illustration: If an official is rotated from accounts to accounts, list of establishments mapped to him should be distinctly different. In case such an eventuality is not feasible, such thing should be recorded in writing along with reasons. Similarly, official rotated between administration section should have different set of task assignment than previously assigned tenure. For compliance, circle and jurisdiction shall be changed in case of rotation between compliance to compliance.
4.5. Notwithstanding above, an OIC may recommend transfer of any Group C officials on administrative grounds to the Competent Authority.
5. Intra-State Request Transfers
Intra-state request transfers shall be both mutual and non-mutual.
5.1. Intra-State Mutual transfers
Officials desirous of Intra-state mutual transfers may form pairs of requests for mutual transfers and give request to Zonal In-charge through HRSoft/ IT Platform or any other mode prescribed.
5.2. Intra-State Request transfers (non-mutual)
Transfer request for Intra-State transfers can be made on grounds covered by DOPT (spouse, differently abled, approaching superannuation within 02 years, etc) and other compassionate grounds.
5.3. Schedule for Intra-State transfer request will be same as of AGT.
6. Inter-State Requests Transfers (IST)
Inter-state request transfers shall be both mutual and non-mutual.
6.1. Request for inter-state mutual transfer
6.1.1. Officials desirous of Inter-state mutual transfers may form pairs of requests for mutual transfers and give request to Head Office through HRSoft/ IT Platform or any other mode prescribed.
6.1.2. Permanent mutual transfer inter-state: Permanent mutual transfers will be applicable only for DR quota officials subject to same recruitment social category. In such cases, all involved officials will lose their seniority and will be placed at the bottom of their State seniority list in the concerned cadre. However, their pay will get protected.
6.1.3. Temporary mutual request for 06 years: This will be applicable for 06 years for all mutual request cases including those where recruitment social category or recruitment quota (DR or SQ) is not same. In such cases, seniority will be maintained by original cadre controlling authority and after completion of 06 years, each official will get re-patriated automatically.
6.2. Inter-State Request Transfers (non-mutual)
6.2.1. For Inter State Transfers, the requests for transfer of SSA cadre out from the State shall not exceed 5% of the sanctioned strength under Direct Recruitment quota of that State as on 31st December of that year.
6.2.2. For IST, the total number of SSA to be transferred to a State shall not exceed 50% of the vacancies under Direct Recruitment quota in that State as on 31st December of that year.
6.2.3. Permanent inter-state transfer: Permanent transfers will be applicable only for DR quota officials subject to availability of same recruitment social category vacancy. In such cases, all involved officials will lose their seniority and will be placed at the bottom of their State seniority list in their cadre. However, their pay will get protected.
6.3. Fixation of seniority in case of permanent Inter-State Transfer (IST)
6.3.1. In case of multiple transfers in a recipient state, all such cases will be placed at bottom of the seniority of all SSAs in position in that state.
6.3.2. Their respective inter-se seniority will be based on year of recruitment. An official recruited in earlier year, will be placed above an official recruited in later year.
6.3.3. If more than one official is recruited in the same year and belongs to same donor state, then inter-se seniority of the officials in donor state will be followed.
6.3.4. In case they are recruited in same year, but belong to different state with different seniority, then person with higher marks in their recruitment exam will be placed senior.
6.3.5. In case of same recruitment year and same marks with different donor states, then person joining earlier will be placed senior in inter-se seniority.
7. Principles & procedures governing permanent inter- state request transfers
7.1. Action to be taken at Field Office (RO/ZO level)
7.1.1. From each office, 10% of in-position strength of officials can give request for Inter-State transfer. In case more requests are received, office will forward cases of upto 10% of in position strength based on seniority as Normal cases.
7.1.2. Apart from above, each regional office may send upto 02 deserving cases on the recommendation of GC-TC in Regional office covered under DOPT norms (spouse, differently abled) and other compassionate grounds with justification recorded as Special cases.
7.1.3. Upon receipt of all normal cases from regions of a state under its jurisdiction, cases equalling 05 % of in-position strength in SSA cadre in that State shall be sent by Zonal Office to Head Office.
7.1.4. Apart from above, a zone can send maximum upto 10 Special cases on recommendation of GC-TC in Zone based on DOPT covered norms. (spouse, differently abled) and other compassionate grounds with justification recorded.
7.2. Action to be taken at Head Office Level
7.2.1. After receipt of Normal and Special cases from all Zones, lists will be compiled by Head Office for deciding priority in all States.
7.2.2. In Normal cases, all such cases for each destination state would be arranged based on year of recruitment, seniority and other such criteria as would be decided by HRM of Head Office for effective implementation.
7.2.3. Further, a list of Special Cases for each destination state would also be prepared.
7.2.4. A maximum of 50% vacancies under DR quota of the destination state would be utilised for such Inter-State transfers. Of these available vacancies for Inter-State transfers, 75% would be for Normal cases and 25% for Special cases.
7.2.5. Based on above two lists, GC-TC at Head Quarter will prepare two lists to a destination state for recommendation. In Normal cases, recommendations will be made based on list so prepared on criteria as mentioned above. However, in Special cases, GC-TC will go into merits of each case and make recommendations and submit to the competent authority who shall take final decision in the matter.
7.2.6. Thereafter list of remaining officials in Normal Cases will be publicly declared along with their current standing for information of all concerned.
7.2.7. In the next cycle, those officials can prefer request who had not done in previous cycle and those whose name exist in previous cycle may withdraw their requests. On withdrawal, their name shall be removed from the list. In case of new requests, all such requests will be bunched below previous list in Normal Cases in accordance with rules specified above. However fresh list will be prepared for Special cases by the Zone and forwarded to HO.
8. Redressal of Grievances:
8.1. Every Group C official aggrieved by an order of transfer may make application before the Competent Authority as per schedule.
8.2. Grievance from an official whose request for transfer is not disposed off within reasonable time can also make such a request.
8.3. All such grievances shall be received online through HrSoft or any other mechanism prescribed.
8.4. Grievance Redressal Committee:
8.4.1. At Headquarter level: Grievance committee shall consist of three ACCs nominated by CPFC who were not part of GC-TC. It shall consider grievances against the orders issued by Headquarters.
8.4.2. At Zonal level: Grievance committee shall consist of three senior most Commissioners (ACC/ RPFC-I/RPFC-II/APFC) in the Zone/ State) who were not part of GC-TC. It shall consider grievances against the orders issued by ACC (ZONE) (both State and Zone).
8.5. The Grievance Committee shall submit its recommendation to the Competent Authority with reasons.
8.6. The Competent Authority shall dispose the grievances and such disposal shall be communicated to the concerned official through HRSoft or any other mode prescribed.
8.7. All other grievances outside AGT shall be disposed off in a reasonable time frame normally not exceeding three months.
9. Miscellaneous:
9.1. All subsequent amendments to the TP-GC 2025 shall be incorporated in this Policy and a consolidated Transfer Policy shall be duly published on the web site.
9.2. RPFC I (HRM) / RPFC I (ZONAL OFFICE) (STATE) / RPFC I (Nearest Regional Office of Zone) shall serve as nodal officer and shall be responsible to initiate the process of AGT as per timelines. The Nodal officer shall also be charged with the duty of seeking views of stakeholders regarding difficulties faced by them or improvements to be made to this Policy and to compile and refer such cases to Headquarters.
9.3. Residential Accommodation of the Board: Any transfer ordered in public interest beyond the schedule prescribed shall entitle the officer for the continued retention of the residential accommodation owned by the Board till the end of the financial year in which such transfer is ordered or till the period prescribed under Residence Rules applicable for the officers and the employees of the Board, whichever is later. Under exceptional circumstances relaxation to retain accommodation can be given by the Competent Authority.
9.4. Power to remove difficulties:
(i) In case of any doubt regarding any of the provisions of the TP- GC 2025, the matter shall be placed before the CPFC for consideration. The decision of CPFC shall be final regarding matters thus referred. The same shall be placed before the Central Board of Trustees in its next meeting for information.
(ii) In case of any difficulty in the implementation of the Policy that may be noticed, amendments may be recommended in the TP-GC 2025 and placed before the Central Board for approval. Each such amendment of the Policy along with a consolidated Transfer Policy, after incorporating such changes, shall be formally notified and shall also be placed in the public domain.
9.5 Transfers on administrative grounds
Notwithstanding anything contained in this Transfer Policy, the Competent Authority may effect transfer of any official any time on administrative requirements anywhere in the Country.
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COMMENTS