The number of contributors to the Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) declined by as much as two million following the Centre’s directive of linking Aadhaar with PF accounts, the Business Standard reported.

There were 46.4 million EPF contributors in July this year, and 44 million in September, according to officials in the Ministry of Labour and Employment.

A senior official of the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) told the newspaper that the decrease in number of contributor was largely due to the Aadhaar linking mandate. However, he expects the number of contributors to increase in the next few months.

“Last year, the number of contributors were around 37.6 million. Otherwise, the number of contributors have only increased over the years,” he told the newspaper.

The most impacted were the 11 regional offices of the EPFO. While West Bengal’s Silliguri saw a decline of 7.7 percent of contributors in September compared to last year’s average, Tamil Nadu’s Vellore suffered a decline of 5.2 percent, followed by Delhi’s Laxmi Nagar with 4.3 percent.

An expert familiar with the workings of the Labour ministry, cited three possible reasons behind the notable decline.

One is the delay in linking Aadhaar with the account, second is when people with multiple Universal Account Numbers numbers fail to link each number with Aadhaar and lastly, a decline in the employement.

The government’s 31 regional offices have logged a decrease of more than 10 percent of contributors in September.