New Delhi: In a significant move to enhance social protection for India’s workforce, the Ministry of Labour and Employment has unveiled the Employees’ Enrolment Campaign 2025 (EEC 2025). The initiative, aimed at expanding coverage under the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), will run from November 1, 2025, to April 30, 2026.
EEC 2025 (Employees’ Enrolment Campaign 2025) seeks to bring a large segment of previously unregistered employees into the fold of formal social security. This effort targets establishments that may have failed to enrol eligible workers under the EPF scheme in previous years, offering them a limited-time opportunity to rectify this without heavy penalties.
According to the ministry, this campaign builds on the success of a similar enrolment drive held in 2017, which covered employees who had been left out between 2009 and 2016. That initiative brought lakhs of workers into the formal retirement benefits system, offering both social security to employees and compliance relief to employers.
Under EEC 2025, employers will be permitted to declare such workers and pay their past dues — often with waivers or reduced penalties — thereby regularizing their employment history and securing their future pension and provident fund benefits.
The move comes at a time when India’s labour force is undergoing rapid formalisation, spurred by digital payroll systems and labour code reforms. By bringing more workers under EPFO, the government hopes to ensure greater financial security, especially for employees in small and medium enterprises.
