Many former employees have targeted the edtech company for failing to deposit the provident fund (PF) portion of their salaries into their Employees Provident Fund (EPF) accounts. As a proof of their allegations, the employees have also shared several screenshots of EPF account passbooks and salary slips. Additionally, data from the EPFO portal corroborates the non-compliance of the company in making monthly deposits.
EPFO regulations dictate that a company must deposit PF funds for a given month by the 15th of the following month. Failure to comply may result in penalties ranging from 5-100 per cent of the amount.
According to the EPFO data, Think and Learn, the parent company of Byju’s, has not made PF contributions for a majority of its employees during FY24. In April, the PF contributions for 3,164 employees were paid with a delay of 36 days, while only 31 employees received their payments for May.
Furthermore, the company finally made PF contributions for December 2022, January 2023, February, and March on June 19, however, the data revealed that not all employees received the credited payment in their accounts.
Payslips provided by some former employees of the startup to BusinessLine displayed deductions for PF contributions made by both the employee and employer.
One of the former employee shared her experience, stating when she checked her account after rumours of potential layoffs started circulating in the office, she discovered that the PF funds were last deposited into her EPFO account in December 2022, for the month of November.
Another former employee from sales revealed that PF deductions were made from his salary each month, but he only received the PF payment in his EPFO account for March. After enquiring he was told that it was a technical glitch that would be resolved soon.
Several other former employees also shared their experiences and a spokesperson from the company responded and confirmed that the company has cleared all the due PF payments towards employees.
The company has faced challenges recently, including the termination of approximately 1,000 employees and the resignation of its auditor, Deloitte, citing the inability to finalise audit reports for the fiscal year ended March 2021 and begin the audit for FY22.
