Schemes under Employees’ Provident Fund Act are not applicable mandatorily to highly paid employees, i.e. employees getting salary beyond specified limit.As on date, the wage ceiling is Rs 15,000 per month. These employees are called ‘excluded employees’.The Government of India vide a Notification dated October 1, 2008, extended the above schemes to foreign nationals as well as to Indian nationals, who go abroad to work and earn salaries beyond the specified limit. These workers are termed as ‘international workers’.Considering the hardship of Indian workers working abroad, the Government of India has entered social security agreements (SSA) with various countries, mainly on four principles:1. Detachment – to avoid double social security contributions.2. Totalisation – clubbing of services rendered in other countries and India to qualify minimum eligible service for pension 3. Exportability – to import the benefits earned by these workers abroad.4. Equality of treatment between nationals of both countries.At present, India has effective and operational SSAs with 18 countries. In order to avoid dual payment for social security in an overseas country, Indian employers and employees have to apply to the social security authority i.e. Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation, to obtain a certificate of coverage (CoC). The CoC is a document that helps an employee get exemption in social security contribution in another country. In the absence of CoC, the employee shall not get the benefit of exemption and would be required to mandatorily contribute towards social security programme in the overseas country they work in.Going by the definition, all employees holding other than Indian passport and working in India (all foreigners) and Indian employees having worked or going to work in a foreign country with which India has social security agreements and are eligible to avail the benefits under social security programme of that country, by virtue of eligibility gained or going to gain, are international workers under the said agreements.Such employees were being enrolled as international workers under the above provident fund schemes even after they returned to India.On June 23, 2017, the EPFO issued a circular stating that Indian employees who have been international workers as per the definition, will not have the same status after coming back to work in India.This administrative circular has overturned the statutory definition of an ‘international worker’. Consequently, no Indian worker shall ever qualify for an ‘international worker’ once back home.Accordingly, the rule of ‘totalisation of services’ being applicable only to the category of ‘international workers’, may not be available to such Indian employees now.Since the Indian nationals returning home are out of the category of ‘international workers’, they may lose the benefit of totalisation and subsequently that of a monthly pension.This circular has caused a serious adverse impact on Indian international workers, as they will lose their provident fund contributions on the full salary from their employers.On the other hand, the circular may favour big companies, who do not want to contribute towards provident fund on full salary.