(This story originally appeared in on Jul 01, 2014)

NEW DELHI: Now any employer or establishment can get a provident fund code number within hours of registering online . They will no longer have to chase officials and files to get the PF code with the Employees' Provident Fund Organization (EPFO)."This will clear hurdles, such as bureaucratic delays, and hopefully portability of the code number will also happen soon," labour minister Narendra Singh Tomar said while launching the online registration system on Monday.At present, establishments have to file physical applications with the region office concerned to register and get a PF code number, which takes about 20-25 days. Labour secretary Gauri Kumar said the online system will also ease the process of 'doing business' in which India ranks 139th globally in a World Bank ranking.The online portal contains all the necessary instructions for filling up of the form along with checklists, an official release said. On completion of the registration process, the PF code number will be allotted online after verification of the PAN number entered by the applicant within a day, it said.Central provident fund commissioner KK Jalan said the process will increase the organization's efficiency. "This will help in better compliance with no manual interference. We will put all the old data into the electronic mode. We will soon launch universal account number as well," Jalan said.Tomar said EPFO would achieve other tasks assigned to it for the first 100 days of the government such as allocation of Universal Account Number (UAN) to over eight crore members of the retirement fund, which has a corpus of over Rs 5 lakh crore. In April this year, EPFO had said it would allot UAN to its active members by October 15.