Zee Media Bureau
New Delhi: The government is aiming at giving better returns on Employees Provident Fund and aims at increasing the corpus of the retirement fund investment in the stock market beyond the minimum 5 percent limit.
According to The Economic Times report, a decision to this effect could be taken in the third week of July when Labour Ministry will call a special meeting of the central board of trustees of the Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO).
The Finance Ministry, in 2015, had allowed EPFO to invest a minimum of 5% and up to 15% of its funds in equity or equity-related schemes.
The trade unions had opposed the ministry's move, but the Labour Ministry, after consulting with unions, may decide on increasing the EPF investment in equities keeping the interest of 'workers' in mind.
The report added that the 5 percent of EPFO corpus investment in the stock market could be raised to anywhere between 7 and 10 percent. This would mean that EPFO would pump in more than Rs 12,000 crore in equity in the current financial year, as against over Rs 6000 crore invested in 2015-16.
The retirement fund body invested around Rs 7000 crore in two exchange traded funds (ETFs) since August 2015, when it began equities investment for the first time, and received a return of 7.45 percent.
