Government proposes freezing Post Office Insurance Fund corpus

The government proposes freezing the existing corpus of Post Office Insurance Fund and converting it into dated securities over a period of three years.

According to minister of state for communications and information technology Dr Shakeel Ahmad, replying to an un-starred question in the Lok Sabha today, the government has proposed that the future accretion to the fund be invested according to the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (Investment) Regulations, 2000 and IRDA (Investment) (Amendment) Regulations, 2001, and further amendments from time to time.

To check proper utilisation of the funds, the government proposes that the funds be allocated to fund managers under the "passive" or "non-discretionary" mode for investment as per IRDA (Investment) Regulations 2000.

Secondly, an investment board will be constituted and headed by the member (investments) of the Postal Services Board and comprising other members, financial experts, actuary and joint secretary of ministry of finance. The board will be the apex body for formulating policy guidelines and investment strategies, which will set the framework for the day-to-day decisions on investments.

Thirdly, a proposed chief investment officer will head the investment division and execute the policy framework and structure of the investment decided by the investment board.