EPFO trustees to discuss equity investment proposal on December 19

NEW DELHI: Retirement fund body EPFO will discuss a proposal to invest a part of its over Rs 6 lakh crore corpus in equities in the meeting of its trustees on December 19.

"We will deliberate on the issue in the next meeting," said Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya, who also heads EPFO's apex decision making body, the Central Board of Trustees(CBT).

According to the agenda circulated for the 205th meeting of the CBT scheduled for December 19, the trustees would deliberate on investment challenges in the changed economic scenario.

Recently, a section of EPFO had favoured investment of a part of corpus in the equity of profit-making public sector blue chip companies.

During an informal meeting of the non-official EPFO trustees with the then Labour Minister Narendra Singh Tomar in October this year some trustees, particularly unionists, had suggested investment in shares of profit-making public sector firms.

Some other unionists, or employees' representatives, on board of the CBT had reservations about investment in equity in view of volatility in stock markets.

In last meeting of the CBT held in August, the proposed pattern of investment by the finance ministry was discussed and the board was not in favour of investing in equities and exchange traded funds (ETFs).

The CBT had decided to recommend making the pattern more flexible to further increase the percentage of investment in government securities.

The finance ministry has been pitching for investing a small portion of EPFO funds in the equity markets to maximise returns.

The Finance Ministry had allowed the EPFO to invest up to five per cent of its funds in equities in 2005 and enhanced the limit to 15 per cent in 2008.
A recent notification by the labour ministry allows the EPFO to invest up to five per cent of its funds in money market instruments, including units of mutual funds and equity-linked schemes regulated by the Securities and Exchange Board of India.

The EPFO has more than 50 million subscribers across the country. It provided interest of 8.75 per cent on PF deposits in 2013-14. The EPFO trustees have recently decided to keep the rate at the same level during the current fiscal as well.