Employees will now be able to generate their own Unique Account Numbers by providing details online to the Employees Provident Funds Organisation, a measure that will make it difficult for employers to hide the actual number of their employees.

Till now, the employers alone could generate UANs for their employees by providing the necessary details to the EPFO. On Friday, its 67th foundation day, the EPFO launched the online facility for UAN generation by the workers themselves.

Sunil Barthwal, the central provident fund commissioner, said any worker can obtain the UAN directly from the EPFO website, which enrols employees for provident fund, pension and life insurance benefits.

“A worker need not depend on his employer to get the UAN. They can do it themselves,” he said.

According to EPFO rules, any formal establishment employing more than 20 people must provide social security to its employees by getting them to subscribe to the EPFO.

The employers and employees contribute 12 per cent each of the employee’s salary to the EPFO. However, many employers seek to hide data about how many people work for them.

“With the employees now able to obtain the UAN themselves, the employers can no longer hide data about the number of employees in their establishments,” an official said.

Labour minister Santosh Kumar Gangwar also launched the EPS pensioners’ Pension Payment Order (PPO) through DigiLocker, an electronic depository that is accessible to individual pensioners.

Earlier, the PPOs were sent to banks in hard copy form that were liable to be misplaced, causing hardship to the pensioner.