PF trustees want PSU share halved

NEW DELHI: The Central Board of Trustees (CBT) of the Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has proposed to the finance ministry that the percentage of EPF monies to be invested in the public sector debt instruments be cut by half to 20% from the current 40% to allow flexibility.
The proposal was made in the view of the fact that avenues for investing 40% of the monies, according to the current pattern prescribed, were “narrowing down� particularly since there are increasingly few triple-A rated public sector offerings.
Allowing this change in the existing pattern of investment of EPF monies, well placed sources held, would allow “far greater flexibility� in investing the EPF money intelligently elsewhere, including central and state government debt and bonds of FIs and in private sector bonds which have an investment grade rating from at least two credit rating agencies.
In effect, the CBT proposal, made several weeks ago to the finance ministry, aims at interchanging the percentage of EPF monies allocated to public sector and FI debt with the allocation for the residual category.