EPFO empowers advisory body FIAC to decide on investment in new instruments like InvITs
22 Nov 2021
Retirement fund manager Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) on Saturday decided to empower its advisory body Finance Investment and Audit Committee (FIAC) to decide on investing in new asset classes like Ifrastructure Investment Trusts (InvITs).
Besides InvITs, EPFO also proposes to invest funds in bonds issued by public sector companies,
State agencies like the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and Power Grid Corporation (PGCIL) have launched public sector infrastructure investment trusts (InvITs).
The decision was taken at the 229th meeting of the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation's apex decision making body, Central Board of Trustees (CBT), headed by union labour minister Bhupender Yadav.
The meeting also decided to constitute four sub-committees, comprising members of the board from employees' and employers' side as well as representatives of the government.
Minister of state for labour and employment will head two of the sub-committees on establishment related matters and futuristic implementation of Social Security Code. Union Labour and Employment Secretary will head the remaining two committees on digital capacity building and pension related issues.
The meeting also approved the draft 68th annual report on the functioning of the EPFO for the year 2020-21, with the recommendation to place it before Parliament.
Further, the meeting approved the development of a centralised IT-enabled systems by C-DAC. Subsequently, field functionalities will move on a central database in a phased manner enabling smoother operations and enhanced service delivery, the statement said.
The centralised system will facilitate de-duplication and merger of all PF accounts of any member. It will also remove the requirement of transfer of account on change of job.