Assistant Provident Fund Commissioner and Enforcement Officer / Accounts Officer (APFC and EO/AO) 2025 recruitment test. Transcribed from the Commission's own booklet (series A, PENA-A-PTS); answer worked out by our faculty — UPSC has published no answer key for this sitting. This question is in Part B. Answer last reviewed 25 August 2026.

Which one of the following is not a currently existing Scheme under the Employees' Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952 ?

(a)Employees' Provident Fund Scheme, 1952
(b)Employees' Deposit-Linked Insurance Scheme, 1976
(c)Employees' Pension Scheme, 1995
(d)Employees' Family Pension Scheme, 1971

Answer

Why

Correct — D, (d) Employees' Family Pension Scheme, 1971. The booklet sets the word 'not' in bold italic — the item asks which Scheme is NOT currently in existence — and three of the four names are live Schemes under the Act.

The Employees' Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952 is a framework statute: it does not itself pay anybody anything. It empowers the Central Government to frame Schemes, and everything a member actually receives comes out of one of them. Three Schemes are in force today, and each has its own enabling section:

Section 5 — the Employees' Provident Fund Scheme, 1952, the contributory savings fund itself. Section 6A — the Employees' Pension Scheme, 1995, which pays superannuation, retiring and permanent total disablement pension and the widow's, children's and orphan's pensions. Section 6C — the Employees' Deposit-Linked Insurance Scheme, 1976, the lump-sum life-insurance benefit payable on the death in service of a member.

The Employees' Family Pension Scheme, 1971 was the fourth, and it is gone. It was framed under section 6A as that section then stood, inserted by the Employees' Provident Funds (Amendment) Act, 1971, and it paid only a family pension on a member's death in service. In 1995 Parliament replaced the whole of section 6A, and the new section built the Employees' Pension Scheme, 1995 on top of the old one. Section 6A itself records what happened to the 1971 Scheme in terms: on the establishment of the Pension Fund, 'the Family Pension Scheme (hereinafter referred to as the ceased scheme) shall cease to operate', the whole of the Family Pension Fund was transferred to and merged with the new Pension Fund, and every beneficiary of the ceased scheme was guaranteed benefits 'not less than the benefits they were entitled to under the ceased scheme'. The Employees' Pension Scheme, 1995 came into force on 16 November 1995.

So the 1971 Scheme is not a Scheme that was never made, nor one that was struck down. It is a Scheme the Act itself names as ceased, and whose money and members were carried into the 1995 Scheme. That is why its year is the odd one out here: 1952, 1976 and 1995 are the three live Schemes, and 1971 is the one the statute buried.

Why the others are wrong

(a)Employees' Provident Fund Scheme, 1952 — This Scheme is very much alive — it is the oldest of the three and the reason the Act exists. The Employees' Provident Fund Scheme, 1952 was framed under section 5, which empowers the Central Government to frame a Scheme for the establishment of provident funds for employees, and provides that the Fund vests in and is administered by the Central Board constituted under section 5A. It is the contributory savings account every covered member holds: employer and employee contribution at the statutory rate on basic wages, dearness allowance and retaining allowance under section 6, interest credited annually, withdrawals and advances governed by the Scheme's own paragraphs. Nothing about it has ceased; the whole of EPFO's provident-fund work runs on it.
(b)Employees' Deposit-Linked Insurance Scheme, 1976 — This Scheme is also in force. The Employees' Deposit-Linked Insurance Scheme, 1976 was framed under section 6C, inserted by the Employees' Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Provisions (Amendment) Act, 1976, which empowers the Central Government to frame a Scheme 'for the purpose of providing life insurance benefits' to employees of covered establishments. It is funded by the employer alone — section 6C(2) caps the employer's contribution to the Insurance Fund at not more than one per cent of the aggregate basic wages, dearness allowance and retaining allowance — and it pays a lump sum to the nominee or family on the death in service of a member. Note the contrast with the Scheme in option (d): the 1976 Scheme is a death-benefit Scheme that survived, while the 1971 family-pension Scheme did not.
(c)Employees' Pension Scheme, 1995 — This is the Scheme that replaced the one in option (d), so it is the last name on the list that could be described as not currently existing. The Employees' Pension Scheme, 1995 was framed under section 6A as substituted in 1995, and it came into force on 16 November 1995. It converted a pure death-benefit arrangement into a full pension Scheme: superannuation pension, retiring pension and permanent total disablement pension for the member himself, and widow's, children's and orphan's pension for his family. It is financed by diverting a part of the employer's provident-fund contribution into the Pension Fund together with a contribution from the Central Government. A candidate who confuses 1995 with 1971 here has the two halves of the same section 6A story the wrong way round.

Concept

The Employees' Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952 delivers social security through Schemes framed under it, not through the sections themselves. Learn the Act as a table of section-to-Scheme pairs: section 5 frames the Employees' Provident Fund Scheme, 1952 and vests the Fund in the Central Board under section 5A; section 6 fixes contributions on basic wages, dearness allowance and retaining allowance; section 6A frames the Employees' Pension Scheme, 1995; section 6C frames the Employees' Deposit-Linked Insurance Scheme, 1976; section 7 lets the Central Government modify a Scheme; section 16 lists the establishments the Act does not touch. The one historical layer that matters is section 6A. In its original form, inserted in 1971, it framed the Employees' Family Pension Scheme, 1971, which paid a family pension on death in service and nothing else. The section was substituted in 1995 to build the Employees' Pension Scheme, 1995, and in doing so it expressly made the 1971 Scheme cease to operate, merged the Family Pension Fund into the new Pension Fund, and protected the accrued entitlements of everyone under what it calls 'the ceased scheme'. That is why three Schemes and not four are current, and why 1971 is the year that answers a question of this shape.

This is the most basic question EPFO can ask about its own statute, and it is asked precisely because a candidate who has only skimmed the Act will remember four Scheme names and four years without remembering which one lapsed. The habit rewarded is reading a Scheme through its enabling section rather than as a free-floating name: once section 6A is understood as a provision that was replaced in 1995, the fate of the 1971 Scheme is not a separate fact to memorise but a consequence of the amendment. The paper repeats the pattern elsewhere in this block, and the same reading discipline answers each time.

Key facts

EPF & MP Act, 1952, section 5 — the Employees' Provident Fund Scheme, 1952; the Fund vests in and is administered by the Central Board constituted under section 5A.
Section 6A — the Employees' Pension Scheme, 1995, providing superannuation, retiring and permanent total disablement pension, and widow's, children's and orphan's pension.
Section 6C — the Employees' Deposit-Linked Insurance Scheme, 1976, funded by the employer alone at not more than one per cent of the aggregate of basic wages, dearness allowance and retaining allowance.
The Employees' Family Pension Scheme, 1971 was framed under section 6A as originally inserted by the Employees' Provident Funds (Amendment) Act, 1971.
Section 6A itself calls the 1971 Scheme 'the ceased scheme' and provides that on the establishment of the Pension Fund it 'shall cease to operate'; the Family Pension Fund was transferred to and merged with the Pension Fund.
Beneficiaries of the ceased scheme were guaranteed benefits not less than those they were entitled to under it.
The Employees' Pension Scheme, 1995 came into force on 16 November 1995.
Section 6 fixes the contribution base as basic wages, dearness allowance and retaining allowance.

Study next

Section 6 and the contribution rate — what counts as basic wages, and the treatment of dearness allowance and retaining allowanceSection 16 — the establishments the Act does not apply to, including the co-operative-society exemptionSection 17 — exemption of establishments that run their own provident fund on terms no less favourableSection 7A determination of dues, section 7Q interest and section 14B damagesSection 7D as substituted by the Finance Act, 2017 — the Industrial Tribunal as the appellate body for EPF appealsThe Code on Social Security, 2020 and how it proposes to absorb the 1952 Act

Common traps

Answering the positive question. The emphasised word is 'not', and three of the four Schemes named are current.
Reading 1971 as merely an older version of the same Scheme. It was a different Scheme with a different benefit, and the statute records that it ceased.
Mixing up the two death-linked Schemes: the Deposit-Linked Insurance Scheme of 1976 survives, the Family Pension Scheme of 1971 does not.
Attaching the wrong year to the Pension Scheme. The pension Scheme in force is of 1995; 1971 belongs to the ceased family-pension Scheme.

EPFO papers ask about the 1952 Act constantly, and almost always at the level of which section carries which power and which Scheme, which establishment falls inside section 16, and which authority decides what. Build a one-page table of sections 5, 6, 6A, 6C, 7A, 7Q, 14B, 16 and 17 against the Scheme or the consequence each produces, and add the single historical note that section 6A was substituted in 1995 and made the 1971 Family Pension Scheme cease. Most items on this Act fall out of that table.

Related PYQs

EPFO_EOAO_2023_Q35

Which one of the following statements under the Employees' Provident Fund and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952, is not correct ?

(a) It makes provision for pension scheme including family pension.
(b) It makes provision for Employees' Deposit Linked Insurance Scheme.
(c) The provisions of the Act shall not be applicable to Cooperative Societies employing fifty or more persons working without the aid of power.
(d) The contribution by the employer to the Fund shall be on the basis of the basic wage, dearness allowance and retaining allowance (if any) of the employee.

Answer(c) The provisions of the Act shall not be applicable to Cooperative Societies employing fifty or more persons working without the aid of power.

The EO/AO 2023 item on the same Act, asking which statement about it is not correct — its option (a) says the Act makes provision for a pension scheme including family pension, which is the same section 6A story approached from the other side.

EPFO_EOAO_2023_Q33

Which one of the following authorities constituted by the Central Government shall be the Appellate Authority under the Employees’ Provident Fund and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952 ?

(a) Employees Provident Funds Appellate Tribunal
(b) National Tribunal
(c) Labour Appellate Tribunal
(d) Industrial Tribunal

Answer(d) Industrial Tribunal

Which authority is the appellate body under the 1952 Act — the Industrial Tribunal, after the Finance Act, 2017 abolished the EPF Appellate Tribunal. Another instance of a body under this Act being replaced rather than merely renamed.

Practice

practice — not a real PYQ
Under which section of the Employees' Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952 has the Employees' Deposit-Linked Insurance Scheme, 1976 been framed ?
- (a)Section 5
- (b)Section 6A
- (c)Section 6C
- (d)Section 7A
Answer(c) Section 6C
practice — not a real PYQ
The Employees' Family Pension Scheme, 1971 ceased to operate on the coming into force of :
- (a)The Employees' Provident Fund Scheme, 1952
- (b)The Employees' Deposit-Linked Insurance Scheme, 1976
- (c)The Employees' Pension Scheme, 1995
- (d)The Payment of Gratuity Act, 1972
Answer(c) The Employees' Pension Scheme, 1995

Why