The Hindu Business Line : EPFO defers key decisions on investment options

NEW DELHI: Retirement fund manger EPFO’s apex decision making body Central Board of Trustees (CBT) on Saturday deferred a decision on investing 3-5 per cent of its Rs 2.57 lakh crore corpus in stock indices.

The Board also postponed till next meeting a decision on increasing the minimum wage limit to Rs 15,000 per month for mandatory deduction in provident fund by employers. At present, the cap is set at Rs 6,500 a month.

“We have not scheduled the next meeting of the CBT. But surely in the next two or three months, we would meet again to take up remaining issues,” Labour Minister Mr Mallikarjun Kharge, who also heads the CBT, said after the meeting.

Trustees also put off a decision on the issue of allowing EPFO to purchase government-backed bonds with maturity period of more than 10 years from the secondary market.

“Since the members wanted a detailed discussion on various investments of Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) corpus, the matter of making investments in stock indices, government-backed bonds and increasing the minimum wage limit for the purpo se of provident fund have been postponed,” Mr Kharge said.

Investment of 3-5 per cent of EPFO corpus means a flow of up to Rs 13,000 crore into stock indices. – PTI

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